A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 523

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 523: What Is Honor?

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Why do wars have to be fought?

It would be a lie to say that question had never crossed his mind.

Why must we kill?

Why must we die?

"If you've chosen to live by the sword, shouldn't dying for it be a given? If someone's only thinking about saving his own skin, he's the one without a conscience."

A loyal mercenary once said that.

"If someone wishes to go to their god, I simply send them."

A priest of the war god said that.

Everyone had their own answer.

Some had no answer at all, just a sword arm and nothing behind the eyes. Some followed orders because they were orders.

"The only thing I know how to do is kill."

A monster brimming with talent could say something like that too.

On the other end.

"I'm in it for this." Someone would rub a finger and thumb together in the shape of a coin.

"I fight to prove myself through slaughter. I need no other reason!"

He had seen a Giant bellow that on the battlefield.

"There's a heat that rises in the middle of a war. That heat alone is proof that I'm alive."

Who had said that? Right, Frog. Something she had said once.

The Frog race naturally chased after something between desire and purpose, so words like that suited them.

"I fight because they come at me."

There were Beastfolk who approached battle with that kind of passive attitude.

Enkrid had seen so many people. He had fought at their sides, nearly died by their hands, actually died thanks to the curse that kept looping his days, and in turn had killed and beaten his way to the present.

So why do wars get fought?

He didn't know.

Through a ruler's eyes, the purpose might be clear enough.

Expand the territory. Take more.

A continent that had built its cities around the threat of Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts faced a gnawing problem as its population grew: not enough space to eat, clothe oneself, and live.

So those in power had to fill what was lacking. They needed land with water, land good for farming, land you could actually survive on.

When someone tried to step onto that land, the person already standing there said, "Hey, that's mine."

And the ruler who needed the land had no choice but to ask, "Since when?"

"Since my father's father's father's time."

"Never heard anything about that."

"That's not my problem. Still my land."

"So how many hits will it take before you back off? Or are you just going to step aside nicely?"

"You want to fight?"

"Yeah."

"Come on then, you bastard."

The actual words might have been fancier, but wasn't that roughly how it went?

So when a war broke out, was it the one who started cursing and swinging who died? The king or the noble holding the power?

No, it wasn't.

The ones who actually died were soldiers. The people under those rulers. Did that mean you should resent the ones who started the war? He didn't know that either.

The one truth Enkrid understood well was simple: if you picked up a weapon and stepped forward, you had to be ready to die. That was all.

If you didn't like that, you should have shaved your head clean, become a monk, spent your days off harassing women where no one could see, and snuck wine behind the temple to wet your gut.

If even that didn't suit you, you should have stood quietly among the plundered.

But wouldn't it be natural to want to fight back when you're being plundered?

That might be just as natural.

Well. There was no way to know the reason behind everything that happened in this world.

And so Enkrid had picked up a sword.

He couldn't know the reason, so he had no choice but to throw himself in.

Words didn't work, so hands had to follow.

The Knight of War's End.

The moment that traveling bard's song pierced his ears and settled into his chest, it became a dream just like that.

Part of that dream had come true now.

So what did he want to do after achieving it?

He had no desire to drive soldiers onto the battlefield and cheer from the rear while they all died.

Then how should he fight?

Ways to reduce sacrifice, that was what Enkrid turned over in his mind.

War and fighting were unavoidable, but he didn't want to be dragged around by them.

It wasn't that he wanted to look away from death. He wasn't going to hesitate to kill.

Only, even if he couldn't end every battle with a single stroke right now, wasn't it right to move toward something like that?

He still didn't know whether this path was right or wrong. Even after walking it a long while and looking back at the road behind him, judging it would be difficult.

That was life, at its core.

Even looking back at what you had already walked, even with it all in the past, you couldn't know that all of it was right or wrong.

But there was no other path to take, so once you chose, you kept moving.

Enkrid had to do the same. And he wanted to.

"Azpen won't advance easily."

Before leaving, Krais had explained everything he had put together, one piece at a time.

He called it strategy, a plan to deceive the enemy, though Krais himself simply called it a trick for misleading the other side.

"How?"

Enkrid asked.

An oil lamp threw up thin, acrid smoke. It was evening, and they were in an office that rarely got used.

"If you're walking through open ground and a wall suddenly appears in your way, what do you do?"

"Go over it, break it down, or find a way around."

Krais lost his words for a moment.

Right. That was the kind of man the commander was.

A lunatic who found a way no matter what.

"Most people stop. And if they know the wall is thick and solid, and that getting close means a fist shoots out and hits them..."

"Then?"

"They halt. They glare at it or think it over right where they stand. Could be glaring at it while actually thinking."

Did he really need to spell this out?

Krais didn't think that, not even for a second.

Enkrid wasn't pretending not to understand out of obliviousness. This was his way of keeping the other person going, a kind of prompt to continue.

Krais knew that, so he went on without missing a beat.

"If they stop, we buy time."

"And then?"

"The main force goes around."

A map was spread across the office desk.

It was a wide map marking the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range, several major cities, and key positions.

Krais placed a finger on the map and drew a line.

The lamp's light stretched his finger into a long shadow across the surface.

"You want us to loop around and hit their rear?"

Most people would have assumed that's what it meant.

But no. Krais knew there was a cunning operator beyond Greenfield.

All the intelligence gathered over time. Azpen's reactions. The current situation.

Krais had taken everything, worked it in his head like dough, and baked it into bread. And that freshly baked white loaf spoke.

"There's someone in Azpen running the same kind of strategy. I'm certain of it. Neither side made a promise to buy time, but it's become an unspoken rule that both parties are honoring."

Enkrid stared at him, wondering what kind of nonsense this was when all he'd asked was whether they'd hit the rear.

The large eyes reflected in the lamplight held anxiety.

Krais had always been that way. Finding relief didn't mean he relaxed. Anxiety was like a finger or a toe to him, a part of his body that was simply always there.

He was scared. Afraid. The worst possible outcome played back in his head automatically. This time was no different.

Krais agonized in his usual way.

What if I'm wrong? What if they don't move the way I think? What if everything falls apart? Or what if it all goes to plan and we still lose? Then what? Do we just run?

He had arranged the means to do exactly that.

"Does that feel cowardly to you?"

A few nights before, while digging those escape routes like a rabbit preparing multiple burrows, Krais had asked Nurat. He asked it ready to hear her criticize him.

"Not at all."

Nurat shook her head.

"Why?"

"Because when it truly matters, you're not the type to run."

"I will run."

"Sure, keep preparing for it. That's what puts your mind at ease."

He really would run.

Nurat didn't let a word of that reach her.

Krais brushed aside the memory and opened his mouth again.

"Interception."

"Interception?"

"That's the unspoken rule. Both sides are saying they'll fight, but full-scale war is to be avoided. Instead, it's: let's put our main forces against each other on ground we both know, and whoever wins that, wins. That's the agreement."

His eyes still flickered with anxiety, but there was something strange burning in his voice as he spoke.

It was a kind of faith sitting behind the mask of anxiety, a trust born from having done everything possible to reduce the variables.

Win or lose was secondary. This was his prediction for how things would unfold.

And it could be wrong. But Enkrid fundamentally trusted Krais's predictions. So he asked.

"We just have to win, then?"

Interception meant going out to meet what was coming and fighting it head-on.

"Yes. But if, just if, just if, you ever feel it's too unfavorable or too dangerous, pull back into the mountain range."

"You think there's nothing lurking inside the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range?"

The line Krais had drawn on the map skirted around the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range.

Terrain a normal commander would never enter. Danger rated at the absolute highest.

Even the outer path he had marked was already extreme, and now he was saying to push deeper if things went wrong.

"Finn led a Ranger unit and secured a few safe routes. They're not guaranteed safe under all conditions, but..."

"But?"

"Even in the worst case, you have to get yourself out."

That was who Krais was, someone with a compulsion to prepare for the worst, whatever the situation.

"Yeah, alright."

Enkrid's tone carried no particular weight. It was flat. No different from the way he'd mentioned that the marmalade he ate a few days ago was good.

That calm manner was unnerving, but it gave Krais something like relief, just a little.

Someone who wouldn't run when it mattered most. Krais knew well that wasn't himself, it was the man in front of him.

Enkrid was not the type to run or step aside just because something was dangerous.

Honestly, it was remarkable he'd survived this long.

And precisely because of that, he would have put his life on the line to hold his ground even when matched against an equal.

Krais had, without noticing, been moved by that. And without realizing it, he had started acting the same way.

Nurat saw it because she was close. Others didn't. That kind of thing.

"That Azpen strategist, Abnaier, was it? Looks like he's made another move."

Krais had felt the limits of what could be done sitting safe behind a desk, working only with his head.

So he went into the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range himself.

"Sinar, I need a favor!"

He made use of the Elf Company Commander, overall chief of the Ranger units, and moved the force with Finn at the front.

"Do you know which smithy the commander visits most? What's he been most interested in lately?"

For Enkrid, training and sword work were always first, but even within that there were specific points of focus at any given time.

"Interesting."

Sinar nodded without hesitation. That was how Krais hooked the big catch that was Sinar using the bait that was Enkrid, secured safe paths through the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range, otherwise a playground for Magic Beasts, and mapped the terrain firsthand.

After that he went out to Greenfield to survey the land where the new fortress city would stand.

He had originally envisioned three separate cities, but the direction had shifted somewhat.

Now it would be the great city of Greenfield with three fortresses within it.

Given enough time, it might be called the Greenfield guarded by three swords.

That would align with the symbol of the nation called Naurillia, giving people not only something real to rely on but a firm image to hold in their minds.

Three swords that guarded the royal family.

Three cities that guard Greenfield.

Not a bad echo.

When Enkrid told Esther he wanted defensive runes carved into three fortress sites, she had said something worth keeping: that public perception matters for magic and spells too. That one remark from her was what started the rethinking of the city layout.

All of that was for later, of course. Right now, stopping Azpen's advance came first.

"As many of the enemy's forces as possible need to die. They'll likely be knight-level."

Krais still had that anxious look as he said it.

There was no need to erase his anxiety with words. No way to, either.

His compulsion didn't disappear that easily.

That was what Enkrid thought.

"Understood."

He could see why they needed to kill the knights, and why interception was the play.

Threaten full-scale war, then sidestep the full-scale battle entirely and send a small force around to fight.

Probably a battle with no spectators. No traveling bard to sing about it afterward.

But did that make it dishonorable?

Enkrid set aside the conversation with Krais, gave the order to march, and now stood at the foot of the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range.

Looking out at the mountains, he looked at the road ahead of him.

What is honor?

It was something you defined with your own heart.

If fighting this way meant fewer needless deaths,

That alone was enough to make it honorable.

More than anything, he genuinely liked the strategy Krais had chosen. The idea of reducing what was lost.

* * *

Krais had guided the enemy's thinking in a fixed direction. To do that, he had quietly fed information into hostile territory.

Look. I've seen through your plan. So come on.

Krais had spoken of manipulating information, and Abnaier had naturally noticed.

Should he twist it another layer and find a different route?

Out of the question. The path ran through the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range, and the enemy had already cleared out the Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts to make the way passable. So what was there to do?

The original plan had been to see through the other side's intent and push past it.

But if the strategy had been read? Getting angry wouldn't change anything. It meant adapting to the changed situation.

"It appears the enemy will come out to meet us."

Abnaier said it to the Beastfolk general in a quiet, composed tone, then added:

"Please win."

There's power in words. There's magic in words. People said things like that.

Abnaier's words right now carried something too.

Faith. Trust. The opposite of the anxiety Krais had shown.

One side carried anxiety; the other carried belief.

Who, then, was right?

Naturally, the one who won would be right.

"Yeah. That's how it should be."