WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 520: The Next Victim

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Enkrid stood in the training ground and gripped Aker's handle.

From the side, it looked like a man standing awkwardly in the corner of the yard, talking to himself while holding a sword hilt. Not what you'd call normal behavior.

It didn't much matter, since no one came to this training ground except the Madman Squad.

And even if someone were watching, Enkrid would have done the same thing regardless.

His eyes burned, the same way they always did.

"Speak. You didn't stick around just to make small talk, did you? Show me what you've got. I'll give you my honest opinion of what the knight before me left behind."

His words came out a little fast. The right amount of excitement was stirring up heat.

The moment he thought there was something to gain from this demon sword called Aker, he couldn't hold back.

Even if he had to break it, he would learn whatever was stored inside this blade.

It was the kind of intensity that made everyone in the barracks turn to look at him.

All that worrying had been pointless. The Enkrid standing there was the same one they'd met at the beginning, carrying the same hunger, the same drive.

"And here I was worrying about him."

Rem said it from a tree stump he was using as a seat, giving a short, dry laugh as he worked the edge of his axe.

"Did the Guide's luck follow him here?"

Ragna was dozing in the shade on the opposite side. He lifted only his head to speak, then blinked once without bothering to wipe the sleep from his eyes, and lay back down.

Jaxon just leaned his back against a building post and watched in silence.

He'd never say it out loud, but Jaxon silently agreed with the barbarian.

Worrying that the hunger was gone? About who, exactly?

The man was the same as ever. He hadn't changed.

Not when he'd first been assigned to the squad, not when he'd learned the Sensory Technique from Jaxon.

The same.

Forged from heat and longing.

"He's returned, brother," Audin said with a smile. He was in the middle of studying scripture with Teresa.

The holy text said that opportunity comes to those who desire.

Teresa turned the words over in her mind a few times.

A desire that does not give up.

She had learned that from watching Enkrid. Before, and now.

But was stubborn persistence alone enough?

To her eyes, Enkrid looked happier now than he had when he became a knight.

He enjoyed the process of becoming more than the becoming itself. He wanted learning more than completion.

So where did that longing come from?

Expectation. The expectation of joy, the expectation of plunging into elation.

That was Enkrid right now. Teresa gained a small understanding and began to pray quietly.

My longing, my joy, my elation, all of it I offer to you, Lord.

A faint light flowed from her shoulders. Tiny grains of light, so small you'd miss them unless you were standing right in front of her, and they vanished almost immediately.

Nobody caught it. Audin had his gaze on Enkrid and missed it too, but because he carried divinity, he felt Teresa's change.

His eyes moved back to her. She was deep in prayer. He had just witnessed a miracle at close range.

The Holy Spirit had left a mark on her, a woman who had once been a Giant half-blood and a Cultist.

"The Lord extends great mercy today," Audin said.

Teresa nodded. She didn't know exactly what it was, but she knew she had received something.

There would be time to find out slowly from here on. No need to demand answers in a rush.

She had always been patient by nature, but since finding genuine faith, that patience had grown deeper still.

"You saw the light? Then run toward it."

Ruagarne spoke, more absorbed in training than at any other point in her life. The whip in her hand trailed along the ground.

She had been snapping it every which way and had stopped when too much oil seeped out of her body.

Then she looked at Enkrid and said it.

It was also something she was saying to herself.

She was old, as Frog went, by human reckoning, well past middle age.

Of course, comparing human years to Frog years was meaningless since they were different species.

But one thing was the same.

Training at that age?

Aging came for everyone the same way.

Ruagarne had reached the point in a Frog's life when age arrived.

It wasn't an age for training.

You could add to that: what would a Frog be training for when the end was clearly in sight?

Frog were a born fighting race. Their strength was exceptional, and their skin rendered most weapons useless. Swordsmen who weren't up to it wouldn't even dare face a Frog.

Most Frog simply repeated what they had mastered through real combat.

That was enough, and because they had the eye to read talent, they knew their own limits very well.

A limit was something that couldn't be crossed. Frog understood that better than most. The sense for reading talent worked on yourself just as well as on anyone else.

But what if there was someone right in front of you who kept crossing that uncrossable wall, over and over, countless times?

It was the first time in her life Ruagarne had ever felt this way. What she felt wasn't the desire to teach. It was the desire to grow.

And she was enjoying it.

Even if she couldn't advance any further from here, she would be satisfied.

She had learned that from Enkrid.

The muscles in her Frog arms trembled from overuse. Ruagarne puffed out her cheeks, savoring the trembling.

Enkrid usually listened to whoever spoke, but the moment he got lost in a sword, he shut his ears like a man gone mad. He only craved and consumed.

The image of him drooling as he swung a sword overlapped with what she was seeing now.

So Enkrid stood frozen, not listening to anyone.

He was hearing Aker out, whether others were watching or not.

A hum.

The sword trembled and conveyed its meaning through Will.

"You fulfilled the fourth condition."

No excuses. That was something he liked.

"Then should we talk face to face?"

Before he could open his mouth, the sword sent another message. The second came right on the heels of the first. Enkrid didn't blink once, and he watched as green and white light poured out together from Aker's blade.

The light spread wide, filling everything around him, erasing the world.

Then wind blew.

Fsssssssss.

The wind came in and rustled grass that reached up to his ankles.

A field. One that stretched without end.

It was around noon. His shadow curved slightly to the right beneath his feet, barely longer than he was tall, which meant the sun was nearly directly overhead.

The light was a comfortable kind of bright. Not too hot, not too cold.

The sun stung a little, but the wind kept it pleasant.

"This is the first time we've met face to face, isn't it?"

Just five steps away from Enkrid stood a person.

A sword identical to Aker was slung diagonally over one shoulder with no scabbard, and the face was plain.

Light brown hair, brown eyes.

Ordinary-looking, but not ordinary.

The sword over the shoulder looked ready to swing at any moment, and both feet were planted firmly on the ground.

No gap in the stance.

"Who are you?"

"Aker."

Aker narrowed his eyes.

Why are you asking names now, when you already know? Way to kill the mood.

That was what the look said.

Enkrid let his arm hang loose. A sword that looked exactly like the other settled into his hand.

No other equipment. No armor, no throwing daggers.

Same for the apparition who had named himself Aker.

Two swords, two figures, or rather, one person and one apparition. That was all there was.

"That look in your eyes. You're thinking something unpleasant."

"Not at all."

"I'd say you are. I'm inside your conscious world, and I share a bit of it."

The apparition, Aker, with his light brown hair, raised his left hand and tapped his own temple a couple of times.

"That seems a little underhanded."

"Don't worry. All I can pick up is a vague sense of emotion."

The apparition pinched his thumb and forefinger close together in front of one eye, closed the other, and spoke.

"What worry?"

"You're already ready to fight."

Aker grinned. The wind blew. The grass swayed. The apparition sneezed, a small achoo. His stance didn't waver. Not a single gap.

What would happen if he thrust right now? The other would react. Enkrid saw it briefly, a flash of what was about to come.

The other would wipe his nose and sidestep the thrust, then immediately bring the sword up to strike.

A straight upward swing, then a bend to try to anticipate the next move.

Factor that in, thrust and close the distance?

Enkrid couldn't.

Because if he thrust, the other wouldn't dodge, he would swing to knock the weapon aside.

Two futures appeared at once.

It didn't stop there.

If he matched blades tip to tip instead of getting his thrust deflected, the other would momentarily seal the weapon and slam a fist into the flat of the blade.

That couldn't break the sword, but it could rattle his grip for an instant.

Once rattled like that, he'd be starting the next exchange with his breath stolen.

Hmm.

Enkrid saw three different responses from the other simultaneously.

Then a fourth and a fifth.

The possibilities kept multiplying.

The apparition's stance hadn't changed at all, but the counters shifted with every passing moment.

"Even when I say let's talk face to face, I figured you wouldn't start with words. How is it? Interesting, right? Some people look down on it as just grappling, but I made good use of it when I was alive. If you know how to use Will, this kind of thing is possible. It's a way to seal Future Sight."

Will was intent. The formless force shaped from intent could stir up Pressure.

For instance, if you formed the intent to knock the head of the person standing in front of you, your body would start shifting into a striking position without you realizing it.

Tilting the shoulder, raising a hand into a convenient angle.

The other person would then, without knowing it, start bracing to protect their head.

Future Sight was the insight to read movement and momentum.

What Aker's thought-self had just done was weave Will, that raw force of intent-in many different directions, tangling the Pressure into something complex, and show it to the opponent. That scrambled the insight, the eye that read the future.

If Rem made Future Sight meaningless by swinging his axe on pure instinct, this approach split conscious intention into dozens of threads and fed them to the opponent, throwing off the senses.

"Not easy," Enkrid muttered.

"Did you expect to swallow it all in one bite? You have no shame."

The apparition caught even that low mutter and answered back.

"Any chance you can explain it simply?"

"You ask me out of nowhere to teach you, and I'm just supposed to?"

"You won't?"

What is wrong with this guy? And yet the only thing in those eyes was pure, uncomplicated hunger.

Would those eyes have looked the same when he threw himself off a cliff? Impossible to say.

It might have felt strange to Aker, but when it came to learning, Enkrid was capable of far worse than this.

"Getting through three conditions was already enough to drive me mad, and someone actually passed the hidden fourth? Of course no one ever did. So you're the first, and I have quite a bit to say, and you want to skip the explanation and go straight to the technique? Wow. No."

Aker smiled a forced smile that made his feelings plain.

Enkrid finished readying himself to listen. The first step was checking whether the blindfold blocking the Future Sight the other had shown him was still working.

He couldn't help it. He'd come back having seen burning eyes, and not just one pair. Four pairs.

The giant merchant's eyes. Craftsman Aetri's eyes. The Frog jeweler's eyes. The little kid who said he'd become a healer.

The ember inside Enkrid had never actually gone out, but this was like pouring oil on whatever remained.

Enkrid blazed.

He wanted to learn anything, had to do something.

Whether that was sparring or training.

See how strong I am right now.

Look at my sword.

I can learn anything. So teach me.

Enkrid's intensity pressed against the other with a clarity and sharpness unlike anything before.

A fresh kind of Pressure.

Not the kind that made you feel like moving would get you killed, not the kind that threatened to cut through anything in front of it.

I want to learn everything. That drive came out as Pressure.

So this was less Pressure and more something like a challenge, an energy that made the opponent want to engage.

The moment Enkrid sensed that something was hidden inside Aker, pressing the thought-self until it cracked was the natural next step.

"Seriously."

Clang!

"I hate this."

Enkrid hid his breathing and brought both arms up in an instant. He pointed the sword tip skyward, then pivoted on his left foot, stepped his right foot forward, and brought the blade down in a straight diagonal slash. An honest, heavy cut.

Aker chose one of the movements shown through Future Sight.

He raised his sword, deflected at an angle, and stepped to the side.

That was how their blades met with a ringing scrape of metal on metal, and Aker had said everything he needed to say while doing it.

The round shadow of the apparition stretched sideways as the sword swung.

Enkrid's eyes tracked Aker's feet and blade. His gaze moved, and his feet moved with it, and he thrust.

Blue eyes drew a long line through the air, leaving a streak behind them.

A speed only a knight could show.

Anyone ordinary would have been cut down and run through before they ever saw the afterimage.

Even in a mindscape, Aker wasn't going to take a hit like that.

He might only be a thought-self, but inside the conscious world he was the same as a knight.

That was the kind of enchantment Aker had carried as a weapon from the start.

Future Sight showed dozens of futures at once. Enkrid expected the other to pick one of them again, but Aker shattered that expectation.

He gripped the handle with his right hand and the area near the ricasso with his left, then stopped Enkrid's sword with pure force.

Clang!

Two identical swords met, and a shockwave burst out.

The grass around both of them flattened in a circle, then sprang back up.

Fssssssssss.

The grass made quite a racket.

The sword, swung with full weight and a shifted center of gravity, stopped dead against the guard Aker had made.

"Instead of relying on Future Sight, you're fighting on instinct? Not bad, but who are you copying?"

Enkrid had seen the technique the other demonstrated and immediately tried to fight the way Rem would, and it hadn't worked. Aker kept talking.

"This place is something like a conscious world made by the sword, and if you want to leave, there's only one way."

Aker expected Enkrid to ask what would happen if he couldn't get out. The instinct to preserve your own life was fair to everyone, after all.

Can't get out, do you die? What happens then?

That was what he expected, and he'd been ready to turn it back around with a smirk and ask what Enkrid thought would happen.

But if Aker had shattered Enkrid's Future Sight, then Enkrid's reaction shattered Aker's prediction just the same.

"Oh, sure," Enkrid answered, barely listening. His eyes were already glazed with something close to madness.

"Hey. Eyes on me."

"Oh, sure."

Is this guy out of his mind?

Only now did Aker think what everyone who had ever dealt with Enkrid had thought.

In the desert, Aker had perceived things through a drowsy, half-awake haze, so this was actually the first time he was on the receiving end of Enkrid's madness.

If Rem had been watching, he'd have laughed and said it.

"Yeah. Next victim, welcome aboard."

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