A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 518

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 518: Because One With a Dream Helps Another

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Becoming a knight may have changed certain things.

To those who knew Enkrid, some things had already changed, and others might yet change. But alongside all that, there were things that would never change.

From the moment he first picked up a sword, he had heard certain words so many times they were practically carved into his ears.

"A man who can't look after his own weapon will find himself holding a snapped blade one day, cut down by someone worse than him."

The mercenary who first taught him the sword had said that. Strangely specific, but the meaning came through clearly enough.

He had heard similar things countless times since.

"A sword is an extension of your hand. Do you pinch Krona when buying your own hand?"

That one came from a sword merchant, of all people.

The man had a talent for words, and those words became a fine weapon in their own right, one that emptied the pockets of many a swordsman looking to buy. Enkrid never fell for overpriced garbage himself, but he agreed with the sentiment.

Could you trust your life to just anyone?

Of course not. You couldn't hand your weapon over to someone with rotten eyes. That was obvious to Enkrid.

"You're questioning my skill?"

The dwarf said it. Was this the stubbornness of a craftsman? It didn't look like that.

What showed in the dwarf's cloudy, muddied eyes was nothing but greed.

He said he'd come from Martai. On credit? Nobody with sense extended credit out here. He probably hadn't killed anyone, but skipping out on payment felt like a safe bet.

"Can you step outside and call a passing soldier for me?"

Enkrid spoke to the craftsman's apprentice rather than the dwarf.

"What? Oh, yes."

The atmosphere had taken a strange turn. The craftsman stared at Enkrid and said, "My skill surpasses yours."

"Not to my eye."

"Why you little,!"

The dwarf flared up like a furnace, but a single gesture was enough to cool him down.

At a speed no one in the room could follow, Enkrid drew the Gladius, the one with the loose join between grip and blade, and leveled its tip at the dwarf. No rattling from the loose fitting, nothing. In the span of a blink, the slightly dulled tip was pointed at the dwarf's face.

In the back of his mind, Enkrid noted that the craftsman had at least kept the blade well-oiled.

"I'm not certain of the exact scope, but I imagine I hold something close to summary execution authority around here. Martai and Border Guard are sister cities, and if you caused trouble there, the person responsible for this area could hold you to account."

He said it plainly, then turned back to the craftsman. The craftsman blinked a few times. Nobody spoke. The dwarf just watched the room, eyes rolling around. That didn't last long. The craftsman looked squarely at Enkrid and asked, "Is there a specific reason you want me to do this?"

Enkrid answered immediately.

"Your eyes."

"My eyes?"

The craftsman repeated it, and Enkrid held his gaze.

"You say your skill falls short, but your eyes and your bearing say something completely different."

What was obvious to Enkrid was equally obvious to the craftsman, just in a different way.

Saying your skill falls short was a cold, honest look at the present. It didn't mean it would stay that way.

That was obvious to the craftsman, because he had no intention of stopping here.

He faced the fire every day to grow sharper. His fingertips had gone black with it, his face scorched. The deep-burned forearms were proof enough.

The dwarf, by contrast, had a belly on him and smelled of drink, and was asking for a house.

In Enkrid's eyes, that was garbage.

If the dwarf had followed up his demand for a house by asking for a woman, he would have been beaten half to death on the spot. Border Guard had no shortage of women soldiers, and he could have left that to them. They would have done a thorough job.

Sure, raw talent could make someone skilled with iron from birth.

Skill could be like that. But what about the will behind it?

This had nothing to do with being a knight who wielded Will.

Even without Will, Enkrid would have treated the dwarf exactly the same.

Whether or not he was responsible for Border Guard, whether that dwarf could out-fight him in a duel, none of it would have changed a thing.

When some things change, others never do.

The craftsman's pupils wavered.

What does this man know that makes him say that?

No, it didn't seem like he knew anything specific.

Enkrid still held the sword in his left hand and asked, "Do you have a dream?"

The craftsman blinked. Three slow blinks. Whatever shifted inside him during those seconds, his eyes steadied and his mouth opened.

"Call me Aetri."

He gave his name out of nowhere and used an honorific.

"Enkrid of Border Guard."

"Then I'll say I'm Aetri of Border Guard as well."

Outwardly calm, Aetri had for the first time in his life met someone who looked into his eyes and spoke of dreams. With this man's blue eyes on him, it felt like anything could be said.

Things like his dream, for instance, the kind of talk that usually earned nothing but mockery.

In this age, most people who worked with fire and iron did it to put food on the table.

There were craftsmen with genuine pride in their work among them, but even those, once they reached a certain standing, tended to come back around to talking practicalities and stopped pushing to improve.

People who talked about dreams and struggled to reach them? They existed at the start. They'd boast and swagger.

But in time, their hearts changed. Every one of them.

Aetri was different.

He had a dream. One he had never been able to tell anyone easily.

That dream was why he had forged a solid-steel axe from Lewes iron, and why he had made a full-block hardest iron greatsword.

Here was someone who would talk about dreams with him. Aetri knew his hair had gone white, that it had thinned, that his arms weren't as strong as they used to be. But he reached for something he hadn't forgotten and said it aloud.

"I want to make an Inscribed Weapon."

An Inscribed Weapon was the kind of weapon a knight carried.

A knight typically commissioned only one Inscribed Weapon in a lifetime, which made it the highest honor a craftsman could receive. But it required both luck and talent, and anyone who lacked the qualifications couldn't even speak of the chance.

At present, the number of craftsmen on the entire continent who could make an Inscribed Weapon was no more than three.

Were there hidden ones who hadn't been found? Possibly.

There was no all-knowing sage who kept track of every soul in the world.

So if someone needed an Inscribed Weapon right now, what were their options?

For a properly made one, the best choice at this point would be to seek out the White Flame Guild, said to live near the Cursed Ground. They were known as a group of craftsmen who worked with white fire, and they had experience making Inscribed Weapons.

Finding them wouldn't be easy, and commissioning work from them even less so, but they were unquestionably the best option.

Even so, making an Inscribed Weapon was the dream of this old craftsman who worked iron over flame.

"You said you couldn't touch magical weapons."

"I'm studying and working toward it. Later, would you let me make your weapon?"

His manner was impeccably respectful. The apprentice couldn't even leave; they stood frozen, barely breathing from shock.

They had never heard their master speak like that.

He had made weapons for those unhinged squad members too, but he had never shown this kind of attitude toward anyone.

Not once in his life.

Was it because the other person was the Demon Slayer? The master wasn't the sort to change his words or bow his head based on someone's rank. That was exactly why the apprentice respected him.

"I'll wait."

"I mean, let me do it once you become a knight."

"That's what I said. I'll wait."

"Pardon?"

"If you meant knight as a title, you'd need to go to the royal palace. But that isn't what you meant, is it?"

Blink.

Aetri's eyes moved.

He wasn't sure what to make of that. Then he understood, and surprise crossed his face before his expression settled back to neutral.

That Enkrid had the skill to be called a knight was no secret, but only a handful of people knew it. And yet this man said it as though it were nothing.

Aetri was surprised. The apprentice was surprised. Even the dwarf was surprised.

The dwarf had been quietly sliding sideways while the Demon Slayer and the craftsman talked, but gave up on escaping the moment the Demon Slayer, without so much as a glance, shifted the sword tip in his direction.

The dwarf thought this was spectacularly bad luck. He had expected that someone of high standing would have a skilled craftsman fall over themselves to please him.

Usually, anyone who could handle a weapon got starry-eyed the moment they saw his skill. Maybe it was because he hadn't shown it yet?

Hardly. It was clear at a glance. Act up and you're dead. Even without seeing the skill demonstrated, even if he hammered out one of the continent's finest swords right here on the spot, that man would not use his weapon.

"Haven't you gone yet?"

Enkrid said it casually, and the apprentice jumped and hurried out.

Aetri extended his hand again. Enkrid set the Gladius in it.

The dwarf stood half-crouched and watched the room.

"Try running and I'll break your legs. If that's what you need, just say so."

Enkrid said it while watching Aetri work.

"I'll stay put."

The dwarf's voice had dropped noticeably. Nobody paid him any attention.

Aetri took up a hammer and chisel, tapped apart the section fixing the Gladius blade, then raised the blade to eye level and checked it for straightness and condition.

"I'll heat it once and re-edge the blade. Do you put your weapon through rough use?"

"I run into a lot of opponents I can barely handle."

Enkrid answered plainly, no bravado. Aetri began to lose himself in the work.

Fwoosh.

He stepped on the bellows and the flames rose. A surge of heat rolled out and filled the forge.

The air grew hot enough that breathing became difficult, pressing into the lungs.

If Enkrid felt the discomfort, then Aetri and Frog sitting nearby must have too, but both were perfectly composed.

Enkrid stayed in his chair and watched Aetri. After a moment he reached into his bag, pulled out the leather he had bought on the way, and held it up without a word.

"I'll see to that as well."

Aetri glanced over and said so. When Enkrid mentioned the Whistle Dagger, Aetri said he could make a few of those too.

"That Frog doesn't look like a customer."

The Frog, who had glanced over briefly earlier, had returned to their original position, sitting in a chair taller than Enkrid's, both arms resting on a desk, deep in concentration.

"A friend who came to learn jewelry-making."

Aetri said it.

Enkrid felt more baffled than he had been watching a Giant become a merchant.

"Frog?"

The question came out on its own. The Frog race was born with naturally slick skin.

Oil ran across their entire bodies with emotional shifts, so even in battle they used weapons with rings or loops, gripping them on their fingers to fight.

Loop Swords and Loop Axes weren't made that way for nothing.

That slick skin was a massive advantage in a fight.

Most blades just slid right off.

Setting aside those who could wield Will, at a basic level you needed to be at least at the master tier in weapon technique to properly face a Frog. A significant edge.

But making delicate jewelry with hands that routinely dropped everything they touched was another matter entirely. Anyone could see without being told that it would be extraordinarily difficult.

The Frog race was simply not a people for whom a crafting profession was supposed to be possible.

"Why? Can't I try?"

The Frog said it. Enkrid looked at them steadily. His eye caught the protrusions on the back of their hand. Nails, driven in.

With palms too slick to grip properly, this was a tool to compensate for that.

Driving nails into your own flesh and using regenerative ability to fix them in place?

"Just because they're a Frog doesn't mean they feel no pain."

Even setting aside what Ruagarne had said, pain was pain for a Frog too.

Keeping those things in place meant enduring that pain constantly. The nails fused into flesh would be like another set of hands for them.

"Why? Are you going to talk me out of it?"

The Frog spoke again.

Enkrid looked into those frog-like eyes.

He had lived alongside Ruagarne for a while now, but he still couldn't fully tell one Frog's features from another by sight.