WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 519: If She Were a Daughter, She'd Draw Her Stepmother's Jealousy

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Enkrid rose from his seat.

"Well then."

"Come back in three days."

Aetri said it without turning his head.

"Understood."

Enkrid was not the type to fuss over courtesy, and he was not expecting a send-off, so he left without ceremony.

Stepping out of the smithy, the air felt noticeably cooler. The Heat, the Fervor, things like that had gathered inside and made the smithy far warmer than the street.

On his way back, Enkrid passed through the market again. He could have taken the scheduled carriage running along the outer wagon road, but he decided to walk.

He wanted to walk, and he was keenly aware that he did not have a single copper coin in his pocket.

He could hardly introduce himself as "I am the General of the Border Guard, the Demon Slayer, and a friend of the King" just to catch a ride.

More than anything, the images of Aetri and Frog lingered like afterimages, and something kept thumping at Enkrid's chest. That made him want to walk even more.

The market was still crowded. The Giant selling goods was still there.

"If you can't meet my price, get lost."

A few merchants standing before the Giant were fuming, but none of them dared to pick a fight. Anyone with a head on their shoulders would know better.

No matter how skilled the Border Guard sentries were, they could not intervene faster than a Giant could cave in a skull.

The Giant's fist was far closer than any guard.

Was getting angry at all brave? Or were they just too thick to know better? More likely they were angry because they thought of the Giant as a merchant and nothing more.

If they had been trading alone outside the city rather than inside it, that group of merchants would never have dared to provoke a Giant.

That aside, the Giant merchant did not seem to run a particularly smart business. Glancing over, he ignored every attempt at haggling.

"Why dig your heels in like that?"

Enkrid stopped mid-stride and asked.

The Giant had been watching the merchants leave. He glanced at Enkrid.

What does this guy want? Nothing better to do in the middle of the day? Some kind of host who lives off women's coin?

Those thoughts faded, and the Giant opened his mouth.

"I bring things no one else can get their hands on."

His pride showed clearly in those words.

Enkrid waited for more. He let his hands hang naturally at his sides, met the Giant's eyes, and settled his breathing into a calm, attentive stillness. That was what moved the Giant. People who listened so seriously and so completely were not common.

It was not that he had been looking for someone to tell this to, but since the words had already started coming out.

"A good merchant, by my standard, knows how to find good goods."

He had no confidence in haggling, but he could go out and find something special. Because he was a Giant? No, because that was what he wanted to do.

"I can't make anything myself, but I can find what's needed to make something special. Giving the right goods to the right person and getting a fair price in return, that's my trade."

The Giant's eyes shone as he spoke. His brown eyes caught the sunlight, and in that moment he looked not like a Red-Blooded Beast but like a merchant full of drive.

The Giant who had stayed calm when merchants cursed at him or strangers picked quarrels looked, right now, a little fired up.

Why? Because he was talking about what he truly wanted.

"I will become a knight."

Enkrid had been the same way when he said those words.

Something that boiled and could not be held back had made him say it. It made the blood run hot.

In the Giant's face, Enkrid saw himself.

"See you again."

"Carry some Krona next time."

"I will definitely see you again. And when I do, there'll be a wide-eyed friend standing beside me with a whole pack full of Krona, not just a pocketful."

He meant it.

"Do that, then."

The Giant cracked a small smile. Enkrid replied and turned back toward the barracks.

As he walked, his steps gradually slowed.

Dreams, longing, passion.

Things like that were rolling around in his head like a tangled spool of thread.

Why was he thinking about this now?

He was sorting through it as he walked when he noticed a small child sitting on the side of the road. Her gaze was fixed on him, which was what made him notice her in the first place.

A kid whose head would barely reach his chest, slight and thin, wearing clothes so worn they had torn through. She was standing quite far from the gates where soldiers stood watch.

Fourteen, maybe fifteen? She did not look old. Her face had freckles, and her hair was dry and a deep red that looked like it would glow a brighter red if properly cared for. Her eyes were a light brown.

The child who had been crouching stood up, did not bother to dust off her backside, and kept staring at him.

"If it was chance, then the god of alchemy must have helped. If not, I'd say my own efforts finally paid off."

Enkrid was making loose eye contact with the child as he walked when she spoke to him. Her voice was thin and light, and that was how he knew she was a girl.

He had actually figured that out from her build from the start.

Enkrid stopped. Her voice was clear and crisp, and there was a strength behind it that her appearance did not suggest, a backbone, more precisely.

"Do you know who I am?"

He asked it plainly, almost casually.

"The lord of the Border Guard."

The child answered.

A better title to hear than Demon Slayer, at least.

More to the point, she had recognized him at a glance. An assassin? She did not look like one. There was no killing intent, and just from her build and posture there was nothing suggesting any real training.

She did not smell of spells either.

Could even that be some kind of trick? It was possible, but Enkrid's instincts said no.

This child had simply come looking for him.

"You were looking for me? Why?"

The girl thought she was genuinely lucky. Why? Because she had not actually believed that coming to the Border Guard would mean meeting this man.

She had settled in this spot thinking that if she was lucky, she might get a chance to speak to someone with power.

She had also loitered around the barracks entrance, but it was obvious at a glance that no one was going to let her inside.

The soldiers had discipline. She knew from experience that tricks did not work on soldiers like that.

Not that she had any tricks ready anyway.

Still, she could not give up and walk away, so she had dropped down and sat there trying to figure out what to do.

To put it briefly, it was a long story how she had come this far. She had been wandering in search of hope, and only one road remained, and it had led here.

You could say she had bet her entire life, her body, and her neck on a gamble.

It was partly because that gamble had luck on its side that she was sitting here at all.

Finding a merchant willing to take pity on a young girl among all the trade groups heading this way was no easy thing.

She had gotten help from the Giant merchant along the way, and one way or another had gone through all manner of things to get here.

"To hold you responsible for the death of my teacher."

Had she originally planned to kneel and beg for help?

She had thought about that at first, but when she actually came face to face with him, those were the words that came out instead.

Her nature had something to do with it, but more precisely, it was because the lord of the Border Guard had stopped at a single word from her and looked at her directly and listened.

Some days she had felt like the tears would burst out all at once, and other days she had thought maybe just living however things turned out was fine enough, but in the end she had come this far.

Thank you, god.

The girl gave a silent prayer of thanks.

If luck had not been with her, she would already have become a corpse rotting in some corner of the wilderness or somewhere near a ravine.

The girl's filthy state was proof enough that the road here had not been easy.

Her nails were chipped, and her shoes were so worn there was a hole where her big toe sat.

She smelled of staleness and something unpleasant, but the girl paid it no mind and kept talking.

"I believe you killed the alchemist Raban."

"Who?"

The name meant nothing in Enkrid's memory. Even if he had heard it once, enough time had passed that forgetting was reasonable.

Good memory did not mean remembering everything.

The girl explained, and Enkrid listened. Why did he not brush her off? The clear voice, the forthright attitude, the unexpectedly proper way she spoke, things like that caught in his sharp senses. She did not seem like an ordinary child.

As he listened, he was able to piece together who the alchemist Raban was.

The lunatic who used to run human experiments under the Black Knife.

A lunatic with real skill, though.

Enkrid added one more label: a lunatic who had also kept several apprentices.

In truth, the girl had been destined to become Raban's concubine when she grew up, but the man who had changed that fate was Enkrid, which made him her benefactor.

And the girl was only sixteen, but she knew what she needed to know.

Meaning she knew Enkrid was that benefactor.

But it was also true that she had suffered greatly because her teacher had died suddenly. Above all, she had not been able to finish the studies she had wanted to pursue.

"I have the makings of the greatest healer alive, but right now I have no Krona and no one to teach me, so I'm about to have to sell my body. Any chance you'd be willing to take responsibility and watch my back?"

The girl said it without flinching. The freckles on her face caught his eye. So did the face that had been halfheartedly wiped clean, washed somewhere or other.

He could see grime on her neck and in other spots. She must have had no way to wash anything beyond her face.

Was that dirty?

To Enkrid's eye, it did not look that way.

What held him was her eyes.

Because they were captivating?

That was not it. They were eyes full of longing, a burning, blazing longing.

"I can become an exceptional healer. I'm not talking about wielding divinity."

The child raised her head and spoke. Her chin lifted, and those shining brown eyes looked up at Enkrid just like that.

"Then explain."

"...You actually want me to?"

They were standing in the middle of a road. No chairs, no refreshments, one side looking a mess and the other walking home with something weighing on his mind, but none of that mattered.

"Go ahead."

The child raised her head and began to talk.

What it meant to be a healer. Why she was needed. What she planned to do going forward. What her goal was. What he stood to gain from all of it.

Some of it was rough, and some of it was remarkable.

Yes, Enkrid felt a sense of wonder.

The child spoke with passion, and he felt something stir in him, moved by that heat.

And the moment he felt it, it was as if he had been struck by lightning.

Those shining eyes. The eyes of someone pressing forward toward something.

That kind of eyes.

Of course this was not the first time he had seen eyes like that.

Just before, he had seen them in Frog.

And before that, in the craftsman Aetri.

Enkrid thought of the others he had known with eyes like that.

Starting with the boy who had dreamed of becoming an herb gatherer, and then Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, Audin, Ropord, Fell, Esther, Dunbakel, Teresa.

All of them had looked at him with those same eyes at some point.

And then what surfaced was Eisia.

"I'd actually half given up. I thought it would be enough if my younger sibling and I just made it through the day on one meal. But I don't think so anymore."

Something she had said while looking at Aoara's back.

What had Eisia's eyes looked like then?

The knight with the orange hair had eyes that burned. Full of passion and longing. Eisia had filled herself back up with the will to press forward again.

It had been plain to see.

Then what about now?

What was Enkrid like right now?

Had he been satisfied at some point?

No. Absolutely not.

Not satisfied. But he had become a knight, and in recognizing that he had gained enough real ability, he had been, without realizing it, content.

He had not thought this was the end. But it had seemed like his dream was already in hand.

Had it been because something he had only dreamed of was now something he could touch?

Had he only been saying with his body, through doing what he always did, that this was not it, that this was not the end?

He had watched Rem and Ragna clash and wanted to rise to their level. Now he could, and had he been satisfied by that?

He had said he would protect the people behind him. Now he believed he could do that well enough in most cases, and had he been content with that?

He had felt like he could give strength to those who talked about their dreams, and had he been at ease because of that?

A tremor, a small tremor, shook Enkrid from head to foot.

A tingling that started at his toes surged up through his body, passed his jaw, reached the top of his skull, and struck through him like lightning running lengthwise.

At some point he had closed his eyes, and now he opened them again. The sunlight was still different, the wind was still different, he was still aware that everything had changed, but some things did not change.

And there was also the ego sword that had pushed him to become this way.

Words Aker had said drifted through his mind.

-You've already learned from everyone, so there's no fun in teaching you.

-I could teach you tactics separately, but wait, where did you learn that first?

-Are you getting private lessons from another knight somewhere?

-Maybe I'm the unlucky one here.

-You're already a finished vessel.

-The Will, you'll handle that better slowly over time.

Every word had implied he had overcome his limits and produced results. That was what had held him in place. So this was not a fine sword but a Demon Sword after all.

The conclusion was clear.

"Aker, you bastard."

Enkrid muttered.

-Hey, it's a misunderstanding.

Aker hummed and vibrated.

It was a sword with Will stored inside it. There was no way it had been made just to chat.

So this too would have its use. If not, he really would find a deep ravine somewhere and throw it in.

The offhand resolution he had made while dealing with the Giant merchant, said as a joke, could very well become reality.

The eyes of the Giant merchant, the eyes of the craftsman Aetri, the eyes of Frog making her ornaments, and on top of those, the child with the clear bright voice who said she would become a healer.

And all the countless others he had seen.

Enkrid tasted the feeling of breaking through a hardened shell.

"Sorry? Aker?"

The girl asked again, wondering for a moment whether the man in front of her was actually Enkrid or just some lunatic.

What is wrong with him all of a sudden?

"That was just me talking to myself. And yes, I'll take responsibility. But you're not allowed to come at me saying you want to marry me."

"...Bold dream you've got. Just because your face is decent doesn't mean every woman is going to fall for you."

"Then we're fine."

Enkrid said it and turned to go, but the girl called after him.

"My name is Ann. You can't just walk off like that."

"Then follow me."

Ann followed after Enkrid.

He walked into the barracks and handed Ann off to Sinar, whom he happened to run into.

"Could you find someone to feed her and get her cleaned up?"

"You went outside and came back with a daughter, and now you're dumping her on me just like that?"

"Spare me the elf humor."

If Esther had seen Enkrid's face right then, she would have said his brow had gone back to normal.

Quite literally, the relaxed lines of Enkrid's brow had returned to what they were supposed to be.

Sinar felt the particular quality he carried. So that meant he had come back to himself.

A tree that had lost its life had become a lit furnace again.

"Watch out for fire."

Sinar said it.

Enkrid heard it, but he swept past without slowing. His stride had somewhere more urgent to be.

Sinar watched him go and spoke.

"Who is she? If she's a daughter, she'll have a stepmother's jealousy to deal with."

Sinar was in a good mood for a moment and threw the joke not at Enkrid but at the one left behind. Ann, realizing she was now alone, answered while wondering whether deciding to come to the Border Guard in the first place had been a mistake.

"Isn't she a bit too old to be calling me a daughter?"

"Fair enough."

Sinar accepted it quickly and nodded.

"A concubine, then?"

"Absolutely not! I prefer a looser type of man. And I don't go for anyone who isn't blonde."

Ann was young, but her preferences were firm.

"Welcome."

Sinar said it sincerely. Not every woman had to fall for Enkrid, but either way, those were welcome words to hear.

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