WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 527: Ordinary Finn

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Finn had found the enemy's trail, and she had noticed they had split into three groups.

She went after the one she judged to be the largest.

Half a day's distance separated her from Enkrid's Madman Squad.

Vague, if you wanted to call it that. Reasonable, if you wanted to call it that.

She could close that gap fast enough if she pushed herself into a flat-out run. Half a day would shrink to nothing.

That would be true anywhere except the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range.

But this place was a cradle of Magic Beasts, not unlike the Cursed Ground.

Unless you were the kind of person who could sprint at full speed while hiding every trace of yourself like a ghost, half a day's distance would stay half a day.

'Bad. This is really bad.'

Rotten luck, or had she let her guard down?

Probably both.

When Sinar found out later, she would probably tell Finn to go die in a ditch.

But Finn had not had much of a choice.

Once the trail appeared, she had to watch it and follow. She could not risk the enemy taking a different route and slipping past to ambush the main force.

Her job was to bring her side and the enemy together. She had done exactly that.

And now, thinking back on it, the way the enemy had left that trail felt deliberate. Just enough to be spotted, just enough to bait someone in. Which brought her to one conclusion.

'I got played.'

She did not want to think that, but looking at the situation, it fit.

The enemy had scattered just the right amount of sign, and Finn had judged she could slip past their scouts without being spotted.

'We trained under elves, after all.'

Hell training, at that. An elf with no trace of a smile ordering her to run, ordering her to roll. Hard not to build confidence doing that.

More than that, every member of the Reconnaissance Team, Finn included, had made it through Audin's basic conditioning drills.

"Audin."

"AAAGH!"

There had been a time when those three syllables alone would jolt anyone awake from a dead sleep.

They had survived that era, and after it they were the kind of people who could run through the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range and come back alive, even if a little cut up each time.

Just not dying was impressive enough on its own.

Had that confidence played into the current situation? Maybe.

Whatever the case, she refused to call it a mistake. This was her job, and if she came up short it was a matter of skill, nothing more.

It was not even truly a loss on skill alone.

The enemy had thrown numbers at them, and short of being one of a chosen few, headcount was an overwhelming advantage in its own right.

Being around Enkrid did not mean everyone transcended their limits. In that way, Finn was a very ordinary person.

At least, that was how she saw herself.

By any normal standard she was a capable soldier, a fine fighter, and a deadly ranger. But that was not the standard she measured herself against.

'I thought I was being careful.'

She felt like clicking her tongue.

Knowing her own limits meant she did not go in for the kind of insanity Enkrid made a habit of. Because she was ordinary, she did not charge at enemies with a single sword just to guard someone's back.

Behind her, a gentle slope. Ahead, a small clearing. On both sides, tall trees. Overhead, a canopy of conifers.

A few broad-leafed trees poked up among the needles. Filtered sunlight fell across the clearing and the ground around it.

Early morning. The dark blue of pre-dawn had passed, and the light was growing.

The Pen-Hanil Mountain Range had its curses and its dangers, but life still found a way here. Trees grew. Insects moved. Mountain birds called out from somewhere.

Wandering through this place, you could always count on hearing insects chirping or birds singing.

Then that sound cut off.

The moment it did, Finn knew the situation had gone completely to hell. She dropped low under the shadow of a tree, away from the sunlight.

Unless someone looked closely, she would not be found.

'Is this where I die?'

She thought it, tucked her chin, and began breathing slowly. In. Out. Repeat.

She had been walking, not running, so she was not winded. Training had taught her body exactly how fast she could move without her breathing giving her away.

Her exhaled breath felt faintly warm, but unless the enemy had an elf among them born with the ability to sense heat, her position should have held.

The boots she wore had extra padding, so her footfalls made almost no sound.

Her group was small, which kept the noise down.

Only ten people, and she had sent three to the rear.

Three up front, four in the middle, three more behind.

Spread out in a long column like that, only three of them were truly at the lead.

Finn, at the very front, raised her fist. Her two subordinates read the hand signal and stopped, steadying their breathing just as she had.

That was the situation a moment ago. She had halted them and let herself think.

She ran through two scenarios.

The first: they held at a standoff, then parted ways.

If the enemy saw no reason to stir things up and risk alerting the main force following behind, they might simply let it go.

The second: a fight broke out immediately.

They had not expected to cross paths. Once they did, a tentative measuring of each other could tip into a clash.

Both scenarios were wrong.

The enemy had already finished preparing.

Abnaier had not sent only a knight to this battlefield. The racial integration policy had given them more than one gifted Beastfolk genius.

Krais had predicted a great deal, but he was not a god. He could not have foreseen the existence of a unit he had never been told about.

Of course no one could predict everything that would happen on a battlefield.

When something like that happened, you dealt with it on the spot.

Rustle.

The sound came from the grass beyond the clearing, spreading out left and right.

The brush that had grown to a useful height had been cover for her people up to now. It looked like it had become a lane for the enemy to move through.

The shifting grass rattled Finn's nerves.

'There are a lot of them.'

She could not get an accurate count. More than she had expected.

'They're going to surround us.'

She had to choose again.

If she bought time, the seven left behind would live.

But she would die. She would definitely die. And if she fought? They would all die together. Finn was a soldier, and she had lived by the sword long enough to know what that meant.

She had prepared herself for this kind of death more times than she could count.

Had there been casualties when she served as a reconnaissance commander in front of Cross Guard?

There had. Of course there had.

This time it was simply her turn.

Finn sent a hand signal.

She would hold them off. The others should fall back.

In any unit, following orders when they came was a virtue.

That was how Finn believed it should go.

Chirp.

Then her own side's signal call sounded. A sound shaped like a mountain bird's cry.

The lieutenant could cup their hands and produce exactly that sound, and did it well enough to fool actual birds.

As if answering the lieutenant's signal, a short series of whistle blasts rang out from behind.

"Are you out of your mind?"

The words left Finn's throat. They had already blown a whistle, so one more voice would not change anything.

Their exact position had just been handed to the enemy.

Rustle.

The figures moving through the grass raised their heads.

Finn's brow creased. Then it smoothed out.

Sinar had said it once.

"You can fight anyone you like, but never fight a group of elves in a forest. It's a pointless death."

That was the line that came back to her now.

No wonder their ability to mask their presence was in a different class entirely.

"A pointless death, then."

Finn said it and swept her gaze left and right. She tried to count. At least twenty. Maybe more than twenty-five.

"Can't be helped, can it, Captain."

The lieutenant, right behind her. That was their way of saying there was no chance they would leave her alone.

"Shut it. Insubordination is a field execution."

"We're going to die anyway."

Two subordinates with a lot of nerve. They had always been quick with a word.

"Not without making them pay first."

Finn said it and let her left hand hang loose at her side. Every member of the Reconnaissance Team who had gathered did the same.

'If they sent their full strength against us, we have to match it.'

For a moment she thought they should have brought the entire unit instead of just ten scouts.

Almost, but it was just noise. Dead people do not eat bread. Spilled milk was spilled milk.

Regretting that you had waded into the water while the wave was already rolling in was a waste of whatever time you had left.

The elves rising from the grass across the clearing had blue skin, with a blue sheen running through their hair.

Just as humans came in pale and dark, elves had their own varieties.

This was one of them. The Moonlight Elves.

"Can you understand me?"

"No."

The voice came from slightly above. Finn barely tilted her gaze upward and spotted a person. A woman perched in a tree, a leather quiver strapped to her back. She sat up there as steadily as if she were standing on flat ground, her balance remarkable.

Small build. A longbow that looked too large for her frame. Whatever else she was, she was clearly not someone to underestimate.

While those few words passed between them, elves carrying crescent-shaped blades began rising and moving closer, one and two at a time.

Finn and her subordinates were the kind of people who would fight a Ghoul with a grin. This was something different. This was unsettling.

The elves' faces showed nothing, and their footsteps made no sound. They looked like waking ghosts drifting forward.

Finn could not let them see her flinch, and she did not, but the truth was she found it deeply unsettling.

'At least I left markers behind.'

She had done what she could.

Even if she died, the enemy's position had been noted.

She let out a slow breath.

Finn knew the value of striking first.

It did not matter if the other side looked like ghosts. Whoever hit first had the advantage. That was a truth that had not changed since the beginning of time.

"You can understand me, though, can't you?"

Finn spoke and extended her left hand. Seeing the gesture, every member of the Reconnaissance Team spread out in a loose line left and right and raised their own left hands alongside her.

"You came a little too close."

With those words, the sound of bowstrings snapping came from beneath the armor covering her left hand.

Twang twang twang twang twang!

Standard issue for every member of the Reconnaissance Team.

Something recovered from a bandit they had encountered once, then modified by Krais.

A small crossbow mounted on the back of the hand.

Bolts the length of a palm sliced through the air. Six of the ghost-like elves drifting toward them were hit.

There were ten bolts in total, but since no targets had been called, some had overlapped.

The elves died without screaming. A strained grunt was all. That too was unsettling, but the fight had started.

"Fine effort."

The words came from the tree at the same moment the mass of elves broke into a run. A rapid string of sharp sounds filled the air.

Blue shapes swinging blades. From above, crescent moons became full moons and rained down. A deeply curved blade dropped like a falling axe aimed straight at Finn's skull.

Finn wore a helmet with open sides to keep her hearing clear, but there was no reason to test whether her helmet or the enemy's weapon was stronger.

She fell backward and rolled.

"Every one of you, aim to survive!"

"Yes, Captain!"

Her subordinates answered with the call they had drilled into muscle memory during basic conditioning.

In the fighting that followed, Finn did not spare herself at all. She had told them to each stay alive on their own, but the moment a subordinate was in danger she dove in without a second thought.

'I'm an ordinary person.'

This is too much.

'I'm not Enkrid.'

And yet her body moved on its own.

Clang!

She knocked a blade aside with her shortsword and shoved it away with force. In raw strength, Finn had the edge. The problem was those curved blades.

They were built to receive almost any attack and guide it sliding off.

Enkrid was somewhere behind her, but still at least half a day away. Even if he was coming, he was not coming now.

This was the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range. Even Sinar could not cut half a day's distance down to nothing here.

If she had retreated and left herself alone back then, her subordinates would have lived.

"So you're giving up?"

She thought she heard Enkrid ask it, from somewhere.

'Hell no.'

She answered in her head, pressed herself close to the elf who had just raked her shoulder as it passed, and drove her sword into its gut and pulled it back out.

Wet resistance.

The elves all wore wooden armor, shaped differently for each but wood all the same. Wood armor had drag. It took real effort to push the blade in and pull it back out cleanly.

But she had punched a clean hole in the belly. That one was dead.

Blood welled in slow pulses from the wound, and the elf's eyes lost focus. It crumpled forward like a bundle of straw, and Finn raised her sword again.

The price for killing one was that her pauldron had been half sheared away, and her shoulder burned.

'Did it cut deep?'

She moved her left arm. A sharp pain shot through it. Still, the arm moved.

'Good enough.'

Finn reset her stance. The sword she carried was a Guard Sword, broad-bladed and slightly shorter than a standard blade.

Fighting blade to blade, she had managed one kill. Not one of them was easy.

"Come on, then."

She had been watching the angles, stepping back two paces toward a tree, when killing intent stabbed into her from behind and she rolled forward instead.

Swing!

Insane elf women.

Blue light flickered between the trees. Her odds were already poor in a straight fight, and now these things were vanishing one by one into cover and moving exactly like real ghosts.

The moment she lost track of one, a blade would fly at her out of empty air.

"You're not getting me."

The small woman called down from the tree.

"You. Stay right there. You're next after these ones."

Finn threw it back with bravado.

Not one person in that clearing believed her.

"Sure."

The woman in the tree said it, and the elves' attacks, Finn's desperate fight, and her subordinates' desperate fight all continued.

Clang!

She swung blades, knocked them aside, threw her dagger at any opening she spotted.

Then she hit the ground rolling, and her eyes swept the area around her.

She saw the subordinates still on their feet.

How much luck did one person get.

Not one member of the squad was dead. They were bleeding, running on fumes, but alive.

She noticed then that the sunlight was very bright.

The sky was so clear, and the warmth of it so gentle.

Was this a perfect day to die?

"None of you are dying."

Finn said it one more time, words no one would believe, and then an answer came.

"Goes without saying."

It was not a subordinate's voice.

There had been no presence and no sound before it.

Finn looked up. The voice had come from above her head.

But the speaker was already standing behind her and to the right.

The man who had appeared there had reddish-brown hair.

Blood dripped from the two short blades in his hands.

Human blood and elf blood ran the same color, and that blood was very red.

It had not been luck that kept Finn and all the others alive.

While Finn was cornered and fighting with everything she had, someone had been working through the elves from behind.

Without a sound. Without a trace.

"To fight elves, you need to be at least at the level of a first-rate assassin just to hold your own. Even then, taking on a large group of elves alone would be too much for anyone, I think."

Sinar had said it, and then she had added one more line.

"That said, there are those who ignore everything I say."

Jaxon Benshino.

Master of the morning dew.

Master of Georg's Blade.

The foremost name in the assassination world on the continent today, without equal.

He had heard the commander's order to link up with Finn, and he had carried out the standing order he had been given before they set out.

"No one dies on this battlefield."

Enkrid had said it, and Jaxon intended to keep that promise.

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