WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 500: As for My Gift

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"I'll go manage the trainees for a bit and come back."

Ropord said it and turned away.

He had his own work to do.

Today was the day trainees who wanted to try their luck got picked for a bout.

It was the reward given at the end of hard training.

"I made a promise, didn't I? Beat me, and whoever does it gets a direct slot under the general."

Ropord stepped up in front of the platform and spoke. Water pooled at the edge of the platform roof dripped down and wetted his hair.

From behind, Rem muttered a complaint.

"Did all these bastards figure it out and bolt?"

Whether it was Ragna or Jaxon, if Rem had predicted that Enkrid would find a sorcerer and reach knight rank, he should have been holding a crystal ball instead of a sword.

So naturally, they hadn't bolted.

Enkrid had heard what Ropord said, and he glanced that way.

It wasn't something he had approved, but looking at how things were running, he caught the scent of Krais in it.

Audin was the best when it came to running trainees ragged, but motivating them was a different problem entirely.

That required knowing how to handle people. No matter how he looked at it, that wasn't Audin's strong suit.

He knew that firsthand, having learned the Isolation Technique under him.

"Eat."

"My arms won't work."

"No. They will."

"My arm won't move."

"No. It will."

That was Audin's way.

Would Ropord be any different?

He had also spent nearly his whole life in the knight order.

He was no stranger to dealing with rough swordsmen, and he had probably handled his share of criminals too.

But handling and leading people was a separate thing entirely.

Training was like that. You built stamina, you built strength, but at its core it was also a process for figuring out what kind of person someone was.

To do that, you had to push people hard sometimes, give them the right reward at the right time, things like that.

Enkrid accepted the current situation as Krais having likely had a hand in it.

Big Eyes hadn't been worn down by mercenary life, but when it came to the basic logic of handling people, ordinary ones especially, Krais would know it best.

* * *

Those gathered here had come drawn by the name Enkrid, but among them were those who had heard the rumors and decided they couldn't trust the claims about his skill.

Rumors ran thick, sure, but actual ability was another matter, wasn't it?

Marco was a spear user whose skill had been acknowledged by a renowned spear master from the western trading cities.

Frankly, he was the type who figured rumors weren't even half worth believing.

If that weren't the case, all those names that stood out in the west, the Harpy Slayer, the Colony Destroyer, whatever they called themselves, wouldn't have been just that level either.

So that was why he had come all the way here, and naturally he was burning to prove his own skill.

But apparently the hero who had ended the civil war was away.

No participation in training meant no chance at a bout? So he had participated, followed their instructions all the way up to now, and was slowly approaching his limit.

The grievances had been piling up.

On top of that, looking at the one called Ropord, he could plainly see the man was no pushover, but his opponent was the Demon Slayer.

Should I show my techniques ahead of time?

That would only put him at a disadvantage.

Most fighters on the continent thought showing your techniques first was a liability.

Marco was no different, and beyond that he wanted to strip away every bit of the man's fame in a single decisive match.

So he endured. Again and again.

Today was that day.

If Audin hadn't gone off on some fasting prayer, if Ragna hadn't gotten himself lost, if Fell had used his people skills and been here instead, Marco wouldn't have been thinking any of this.

He didn't look at Ropord. His gaze locked onto Enkrid.

Enkrid's curly hair had been soaked by the rain and hung limp like seaweed, blocking his view, so he swept a hand across his face.

"Grrr."

Behind him a beast with gray hair was grinding its molars, but he didn't spare it a glance.

Some of the trainees were watching Ropord, but Marco's gaze had been unwavering from the start.

Enkrid.

General. Hero. Ender of the civil war. Demon Slayer. Savior of the nation. Guardian of the Border Guard. Friend to the king. Destroyer of the Gray Cursed Ground.

A man with no end of nicknames.

Seeing him in person, he clearly wasn't some half-rate fighter, but.

Would I lose for certain if we fought?

He didn't think so. Marco had confidence in himself. He had learned spear techniques through books. Even so, as a boy there had been no rivals around him, and even among the people he met as he grew, those who were roughly his match he could catch up to within a month at most.

He had gone looking for teachers in swordsmanship and the spear, but not one of them had satisfied him.

He didn't win every time. But he had never ended a fight in defeat.

Marco let out a slow breath. Even with autumn arriving on the back of the rain, the temperature was still high.

There was an unpleasant stickiness to it, but what did that matter? What mattered was showing his skill. This was that moment.

Enkrid had been feeling the gaze on him for a while. No reason to avoid it, so he stared right back.

"Am I allowed to pick my own opponent?"

Marco asked.

Among the soldiers who came to the Border Guard, some were lured by the high pay, but many came to measure their own skill.

Enkrid knew that kind well.

The staring alone said everything. He wants a fight.

No reason to refuse. No desire to, either.

More than anything, there were things he had figured out on the journey back, and he needed a decent opponent to test them against. The things still too rough to try on Rem.

"Will you be all right with this?"

Enkrid didn't turn away challengers. That would hold even now, just back from a long road.

Ropord asked, and Enkrid nodded and set down his pack.

He considered drawing Aker, then left it and took only the Gladius as he stepped down.

From hard use or just time, the scabbard had loosened and the blade rattled inside it.

When he had a moment he would need to track down the blacksmith in the city and have it seen to.

Marco, the trainee, drew his weapon.

A short spear, slightly longer than he was tall.

The stance he took, gripping it wide and leveling it forward, was not ordinary.

By ordinary soldier standards, at least.

Those not affiliated with a knight order referred to themselves by ranks like junior knight or squire.

In that sense, Marco could be called junior knight level.

And having actually faced them, Enkrid had found that junior knight rank was, well, not quite meaningless, but.

They all die the same when cut, but the gap in skill is real.

No matter how he thought about it, Romen from the City of Aoara, or Eisia who had by now returned to the royal palace, didn't seem like they would lose to someone like this.

"I won't be able to hold back."

Marco said it.

Courteous and honest on top of everything else.

He was giving fair warning that he was coming in full.

Everything was already visible in his stance and bearing.

That eye that saw one step ahead. The sense and instinct that, if he ever became a knight, would probably be called Future Sight.

Enkrid tossed the Gladius lightly into the air and caught it in a reverse grip.

"...Is that really all you're using?"

Marco asked, and Enkrid answered by opening the fingers of his sword hand and giving a small wave.

The Seaweed-Hair man with clenched teeth cut through the rain. His spear tip shrank to a point in the distance.

Would Ropord be able to handle this level? Maybe the old Ropord. The current one, he couldn't say.

Enkrid thought it as he swung the Gladius in a reverse grip.

Clang.

He struck the spear tip and pushed in simultaneously, then drove his bare fist into the man's gut.

It was a straight thrust he had built from watching Rem's kick drive in like a throwing spear.

Off a stomping step into the ground, he extended his arm using nothing but muscle with no rotation mixed in, which kept the wind-up short and the whole thing fast.

Thud.

"Ugh!"

Marco's feet left the ground for a moment. Even so, he didn't let go of the spear.

Marco, briefly airborne at a diagonal, crashed down into the mud. The light had drained from his eyes.

Not quite unconscious, but he looked like his mind had briefly left him.

Still didn't drop the spear, though.

That was what Enkrid thought.

If this had been a test, he would have called it a pass.

Either way, when you stripped it down, it had been nothing more than a simple sequence: block, dodge, strike.

The rain roared down.

"Gh..."

Marco crawled along the ground. Enkrid had held back on the force, but he hadn't hit light either.

A full strike might have ruptured something inside and sent blood and worse spilling from his mouth.

"...What was that."

"I couldn't even see it."

A few trainees muttered.

The gap in skill was plain.

"Anyone else want a turn?"

Ropord asked.

Every trainee there lifted their heads. The meaning in their eyes was clear.

After seeing that, who would step up?

Ropord smiled wide in the pouring rain and said it.

"How about a round with me, then?"

With Ragna away, his hands had been itching lately.

More than that, there was something he had wanted to show Enkrid when he came back.

Ropord raised his blade high and took a high guard.

Enkrid gripped the Gladius handle again and answered.

"I'd call this a welcome home."

He was curious about how Ropord had changed, anyway.

Ropord focused. He split each moment and stretched time thin. A concentration that burned steady made him forget everything around him.

The falling rain, the situation, the passing seconds.

What remained in his awareness was only the sword in his hand and the opponent before him.

He had kept refining himself after training under Ruagarne, and he had kept getting ground down by Ragna without stop. Through it all, Ropord had gained something new.

He named it Eagle's Eye.

When he poured all five senses into his opponent, a sensation came over him, as if he were watching from somewhere high above.

Enkrid wasn't moving at all.

Ropord observed through Eagle's Eye and waited for the opponent to stir.

Then Enkrid moved.

Suddenly a blade filled Ropord's vision. Enkrid had thrown the Gladius without any wind-up. No, there had been a wind-up, but it came so fast that his reaction was a beat late. Ropord slashed down on reflex.

Clang!

The Gladius spun away.

Crack!

Heaven and earth rang out. That was how Ropord felt it. At the same moment, lightning flashed before his eyes.

Huh?

Why was the world spinning?

Ropord crumpled.

"You have to read your opponent before you charge in."

Rem said it from up on the platform, his agitation settled.

"Looks like you finally got a little taste of it. Still a long way to go."

He added it after. Bored tone.

"Ah."

Sitting in the mud, Ropord let out a short sound.

He had thought he was finally starting to close the gap.

Watching Enkrid put that trainee down just now, it had seemed like his own sword could handle the matchup.

Not even close.

"So this is how hard it is to catch a genius."

Ropord said it.

Ah. Right.

Every trainee watching silently agreed.

Ropord shook his head side to side. His skull was still ringing.

Enkrid had thrown the sword to close the distance, then followed it up with a high left-foot kick that caught him under the jaw. Every motion had happened at a speed that defied sense, nothing more than that.

Ropord still had the shock of that single hit sitting in him.

Every trainee there went quiet.

Enkrid, for his part, had nothing to say to the word genius.

He didn't feel good about it or bad about it.

It just was. Someone seeing him that way? That could happen.

Ropord himself would know that two words, genius and talent, couldn't capture everything a person had built.

"Going in first."

Leaving the squire he had just knocked flat on the ground, Enkrid picked up his pack from the mud, crossed the training ground, and went inside. Behind him he heard Ropord shout loud.

"Alright! If we keep at it, someday we can get there too!"

Ropord had, somewhere along the way, become a man of absurd fighting spirit.

"Bold dream."

"Not everyone can get there. That's why the world is unfair."

Rem and Ruagarne said it in turn.

"Were you always the type to laugh at other people's dreams?"

Enkrid looked at Rem and asked.

"Didn't you know? I was laughing when you first said you'd become a knight."

He had been.

"If someone is there to breathe dreams into people, someone else is needed to remind them of reality."

Ruagarne spoke like a sage hiding on the hill behind a village.

Sages hiding not in deep forests or on high mountains but on modest backyard hills were usually frauds rather than sages, but either way, what Ruagarne said wasn't wrong.

If a dream broke from hearing words like that, it wasn't something you could prop back up by force.

Enkrid walked. He looked at the lodging, unchanged.

First he would set down his things, wash, and then eat something proper for the first time in a while instead of field rations.

He opened the door to the lodging.

Blue eyes. Long black hair. A black robe that still showed a sliver of skin at the edges.

A sorcerer sitting in an antique chair that had come from who knows where caught his eye.

She had her legs crossed and met his gaze.

"Back already?"

She spoke as if she had seen him just yesterday.

And beside her was an elf with a work desk even more out of place than the antique chair.

She set down something she had been carving with a chisel and looked up.

"You're back, my betrothed."

The elf's sense of humor hadn't changed.

Esther said only that and no more. Sinar didn't turn her head.

Those eyes were clear and direct.

The rain roared on.

The door clicked shut at his back.

A fire burned in the brazier set in the middle of the room, and with the fire behind her, Sinar asked.

"My gift is?"

He hadn't been away on any trip, so what was she expecting a gift for.

Enkrid thought that, set down his pack, and was about to say there was nothing, but he stopped himself.

Thinking about it, he did have something for each of them.

For Jaxon, an invisible-bladed dagger.

For Esther, some magical item he had ended up bringing along by chance.

And for Audin, a broken sacred object.

Can I even call these gifts?

Probably not. Even so, Enkrid gave something to the elf who had asked.

"A dagger that wards off misfortune."

It was the offering dagger, useless to him, but possibly useful to someone.

Sinar caught it with a snap, looked it over once, and tucked it inside her robe.

"Something has changed about you. When the rain stops, let's spar."

Then she said the words Enkrid would be happiest to hear. She was thoughtful in that way, this elf.

"Not a bad offer."

Enkrid washed, ate, and sorted out his things. Even so, the feeling was less like being back and more like something was missing.

The ones who should have been there were each gone from their spots. That was why.

They would come back soon enough, but right now, yeah. It was a little empty.

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