WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 542: Now, Tell Me

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"Tch, what a shame. Should've just left him behind."

"Hm. Survived, did he."

"The Lord simply isn't ready to welcome you yet, brother."

"Ah. I'd almost forgotten about him."

"Arms and legs are all there. If nothing got cut off, you're fine."

"Are Frogs and humans really the same to you? I'm not sure he's alright. Sir Ragna."

Those were the words Ragna heard right before he passed out.

Thinking back, the last two sounded like Ruagarne and Ropord.

The one who said he'd almost forgotten would be Enkrid.

And the first two had been the Barbarian and the wildcat.

Ragna skipped over any intermediate reasoning and opened his eyes.

"One hand is enough."

With the missing words filled in, he meant: even if all of them came at him at once, one hand would do. It was also an invitation to attack, injury or not.

"Nobody's actually talking about cutting off your arm."

He had assumed he'd only closed his eyes for a moment, but no. The ceiling was unfamiliar, and a woman he had never seen before was staring straight at him.

It was Ann, who had appointed herself as healer. She looked quietly at the blond Ragna and said, "Rest. You need to eat well and sleep for a few days, and take your medicine without missing a dose."

Her tone was crisp and no-nonsense. Ragna gave a small nod. His arms and legs were wrapped in bandages, and he could feel the pain, but it was far better than before he'd collapsed.

"Where am I?"

"The treatment room, though it still leaves a lot to be desired, honestly. The field medics in the barracks have no basic grasp of medicine whatsoever. Half the alchemists making remedies swagger around with formulas they picked up from watching over someone's shoulder. The other half cling to a few half-baked recipes and go on about centuries-old family secrets, and so on. Though there is one good thing here: say you need something and it appears right away."

Ann spoke in a steady stream while grinding herbs in a wooden bowl.

Before the war started, Ann had been assigned to the medical corps. Enkrid had left her in Sinar's care, but Sinar couldn't look after her directly.

So Ann had ended up like a commoner walking alone into a party full of noble-born children.

What was the word for something like that?

There was an old story with something similar. A commoner woman with a magic that transformed her at midnight fell in love with a prince and tried to win him over with her shoes, or something like that.

In the story, after she was badly snubbed at the party, she got angry enough to use her shoes as weapons, and after that it became a saying: if you have no weapon at a party, use your shoes.

The details were fuzzy, but that was the thought that came to mind.

The saving grace was that while some people stared at her blankly, no one tried to take advantage of her or looked at her with predatory eyes.

Even so, two days of being treated like a commoner was more than enough.

"And you are?"

"Ann."

A man with large eyes had come looking for the girl the commander brought in and given her a place. He told her to say if she needed anything, so Ann nodded and spoke up.

"A room of my own. Tools and equipment for research. Books on alchemy, if any can be found. And if there are alchemists staying in the city, I'd like to meet them."

The forward request made Krais ask what exactly she was supposed to be. His tone was a little incredulous, but Ann answered without hesitation: a healer. The large-eyed man seemed pleased and started seeing to her needs.

Krais was no fool. He knew that most of the people who had gathered or been personally invited to the city were alchemists in name only.

Even if half were frauds, he had decided to offer moderate support rather than drive them away, because if you kept funding people like that, the genuine alchemists and researchers eventually came crawling in too.

You have to cast bait if you want to hook a fish someday.

Still, it left a slightly stale feeling.

It was a bit like grabbing a fistful of silver coins and pitching them into a well.

These mad alchemist types, once they received their silver, they were supposed to produce something in return, but they all had that same unfinished quality. That was the situation when Ann appeared.

"A student of Raban the alchemist?"

"Yes, specializing in developing remedies and treating illness..."

"I see."

After that, Ann's days became peaceful, and whatever she needed was provided.

If she could want for one more thing, it would be a truly gifted teacher.

That was greed, of course.

In terms of raw skill, an alchemist at Raban's level wasn't something you found easily.

Even just his potions had been quite well regarded.

Potions, as an immediate form of medicine, were sometimes called a second life on the continent.

Some were even sold under that name.

There were broadly two kinds. One carried divinity, sold exclusively by the Holy State. The other was produced by certain alchemists who spent generations refining secret techniques passed down through their lineages. The first type was naturally superior in both stability and effect.

Expensive, and limited in supply.

A few potions on the latter side had made names for themselves too. Things that came out of fairly well-known workshops sold well enough.

Since Raban had done potion research alongside Ann, Krais saw her as someone who could develop potions herself.

She could heal people, perform surgery, set bones, and handle all manner of things, but alchemy was her true specialty.

Even if she turned out to be a fraud, the foundation of any investment was trust, so Krais brought her what she needed.

Before long, Ann had her own private research room rather than a corner in the medical barracks, along with a treatment room to match.

It was only natural that her skills were recognized.

She had been called a genius even when she worked under Raban.

It would be wonderful if every talented person could find this kind of opportunity and grow into it, but of course that was never how it worked.

Some got to spread their talents like this, but plenty of others, talent and all, simply lived and died without ever finding the chance.

In that way, Ann knew she was lucky. Still, her desire to study and research the healing side of alchemy for her own dream was stronger than her contentment, and so she wanted for more.

All of that was the context behind the flood of words that poured out when she saw Ragna.

Among those seriously hurt in this battle, aside from Ragna, there was only a soldier with a sprained ankle and the city lord. Frog needed no treatment, so that was the complete count.

The city lord had left the treatment room almost the moment he felt well enough, saying it felt too cramped. The soldier with the sprained ankle hadn't needed to be in the treatment room to begin with.

That left Ragna as the only one who had been lying gravely wounded and had now woken up.

There were also a handful of minor cases, colds and such, but right now the whole city was celebrating. The city buzzed with talk of the great victory and the title of Iron Wall.

No soldier who wasn't seriously ill was lying in bed.

Anyway, that was the situation, and Ragna's looks had struck a particular chord with Ann, which was why she'd launched into her whole story. Hearing it, Ragna opened his eyes halfway with a languid expression.

"I see."

It was an answer that no one could mistake for even faint interest.

"Oh. Um. Yes. Right."

Ann was a little flustered. Wasn't it normal to feel at least a flutter when a woman as pretty as herself showed interest?

That was her inner thought, but in practice Ann had never actually experienced any kind of romantic development with another person.

She had learned about relations between men and women exclusively from books.

Ann stared at Ragna's drowsy eyes and his greasy blond hair, unwashed from days of injury.

Clean him up and dress him properly and he'd look quite good. Right now his skin was dull from not being able to wash or eat, but still.

"My name is Ann."

"I see."

Ragna had already stopped paying attention, so he answered absently and closed his eyes.

Ann watched him and felt something clench in her chest.

What the hell was that?

Even if he wasn't interested, wasn't it basic courtesy, when someone told you their name, to say yours back?

The curses she'd picked up training under Raban and wandering the continent nearly came tumbling out of her mouth.

The girl chattering in front of him didn't register in Ragna's eyes at all.

He closed them.

The outcome of the battle he had already seen with his own eyes, but regardless of that, there was one moment he had witnessed that left him curious.

Just before he'd used his broken sword as a walking stick and turned back toward the allied lines, he had seen what Enkrid did.

What was that?

Pressure had become a wall and stopped the enemy.

It was a form of Will he had never seen in his life.

If his body had been even slightly more intact, he would have gone straight to ask, but Ragna coolly acknowledged that his body was not in any condition for that. So for now, it was time to rest.

* * *

"Now then. Tell me."

The dim lamplight lit only half of Sinar's face, throwing deep shadow across the rest.

"Was that Will?"

Enkrid also noticed the person sitting entirely in darkness beside her.

That sly wildcat, Jaxon. Only his eyes caught the light, and his presence was so thin he could have vanished in a blink without anyone noticing.

"Don't be so sly. Light the candle behind you."

Fwoom.

Rem, sitting across from him, brought a candle to the unlit lamp and lit it. With the lamp and the brazier both going, the room brightened all at once.

A bear Magic Beast hide hung on one wall. The floor was spread with dry grass and a gray carpet laid over it, and there was a wooden desk and a low bed built at head-height along one wall. Sinar's room.

Sinar had invited Enkrid to ask about the Iron Wall he had shown, and everyone else had simply trailed in behind.

It wasn't as though the location mattered much. Even if it was Sinar's own room, she spent very little time in it.

"You have to be careful with fire."

Sinar watched Rem light the candle and said so. Whatever the reason, Sinar was endlessly cautious about fire.

"Nobody in here's dying from a fire."

Rem shot back without a second thought, then snorted and nudged Enkrid's elbow.

"Come on, tell us. What did you do?"

"I'm also curious about how you called my name, brother."

Audin followed after Rem. Beside him were Teresa, Ropord, Fell, and Ruagarne.

Actually, right outside the room was Odd-Eye, and Enkrid was stroking Esther's back. She was in panther form, naturally.

Esther rumbled low in her throat.

She had stopped moving around in human form so completely lately that he half-wondered if she'd decided her true identity was the panther.

It was one of those idle evenings.

The war was over, and the day had been spent drinking and eating their fill.

Along the way, he'd heard the nickname Iron Wall Swordsman drifting around.

Was it a little better than Demon Slayer, at least in how it sounded?

Enkrid let those idle thoughts drift past and answered their questions in short bursts.

"What?"

"Oh, don't play innocent. You're real good at that."

"It's about what you did when you got the Iron Wall name."

"When you called out to me, didn't you use some special technique? My evasive brother."

Audin had a tendency to vary the honorific he attached before "brother," swapping it out freely depending on his mood.

Enkrid took stock of all their questions. Rem and the few who had reached something close to knight-level only looked curious, but Ropord and Fell had a different look in their eyes.

Ruagarne especially had claimed her spot with the clear intention of crawling there on her hands if she had to, despite having only one leg.

Her eyes gleamed less like a Frog's and more like a Giant's, as though there was so much oil in them it had filled her eyeballs.

Enkrid thought back to that moment and spoke.

"I raised a wall and layered Pressure into it."

The boiling Will, the surge of emotion, the omnipotence that had burst out of it, he couldn't explain those parts more precisely. All he had done was keep pouring Will into it until it held.

"Hell, you call that an explanation?"

Rem heard it and got irritated. How was anyone supposed to understand that?

"Hm. That's really all?"

Jaxon tossed in a line.

Enkrid's composure was something rare to find even among actual knights. And yet right now he felt a surge of frustration rising up through him instead of Will.

Getting scolded for not being able to explain?

That was the last thing Rem or Jaxon had any right to say.

"Brother, how did you do it when you called out to me?"

It wasn't only the wall. When he had called out to Audin, he had also erupted with Will and done something similar.

How was he supposed to put that into words?

"I cried out with Will packed into it."

Enkrid chose his words more carefully this time.

"I see."

Audin smiled, but his expression was a little stiff. His eyes crinkled in a way that looked forced rather than alive.

Rem's criticism and Audin's expression amounted to the same thing.

"That's as far as I can explain it."

Enkrid said it again. And without meaning to, he felt what Rem, Jaxon, Ragna, and Audin must have felt every time they had tried to explain a technique to him.

It was simple enough when you just did it, but the moment someone asked you to explain, you were stuck.

Since he understood their feelings, he understood that their reaction was fair too.

So Enkrid did what they used to do.

"So what do you want me to do about it?"

"Ha."

Incredibly, that made Sinar burst out laughing.

Ropord and Fell took on thoughtful expressions, and Ruagarne started murmuring with a faraway look in her eyes.

"With a Will like Ousque's, the things you could do, you can't build a wall by yourself, but if you have the strength, you could block a path with a great stone."

In a way, it was exactly right.

It had been brute-forced into existence through the sheer mass of his natural Will.

"If you spread fear infusion like Grime's wings covering everything."

"It's like setting dozens of blades upright to threaten them."

"You don't need to hold up many shields, sister. You just step in front with one. Though that shield would need to be quite large, and thick, and solid. Of course, the wall our commander brother made was a bit soft, to be honest."

Rem, then Jaxon, then Audin each spoke, and then Rem picked it back up.

"That's true."

"Blades on the blunter side."

Each of them had processed what Enkrid said and translated it into their own framework.

Which was to say, this was the realm of genius.

Audin even took a moment in the middle of it all to explain things to Teresa.

Enkrid smiled and blessed the lot of them.

"The spawn of quadrupedal Magic Beasts wearing human faces."

Cut short, it meant something like: sons of dog-faced beasts. A creative construction, as curses went.

He said exactly that much, then got to his feet.

Gathering here had happened by chance, but he had something to do this evening, so it was time to move. That was what he had come to see Sinar about before all of this started.

A commission that had come down from Nauril.

"Let's go, Jaxon."

"Yes."

He wasn't going alone. Jaxon rose without a sound.

"Sinar?"

"Yes, let's go, my fiancé who hasn't shriveled up and still gives me things to laugh at."

Even Demon Slayer would have been more dignified.

The three of them stood, and Rem announced he was going to sleep and moved off, while Audin said it was time for his prayers and left as well.

The rest also dispersed.

Stepping outside and pulling on black cloaks, they looked exactly like people slipping through the dark on some clandestine errand.

"Fits you all. Three wildcats?"

Rem threw that at them and was gone.

Had they ended up wearing black by accident, heading out at this hour?

Then again, putting on jeweled armor wasn't an option either.

There was no reason to draw in Magic Beasts and Demon Creatures that went berserk at the sight of something shiny, or to light themselves up like a signal.

This was a confidential commission, after all.

Enkrid set out with Jaxon and Sinar toward the city's outskirts, specifically in the direction of Greenfield.

A carriage painted black was waiting there. Someone was already seated inside.

The figure waved a hand out the window.

The three climbed in, and a man who had gone so far as to put on a mask to hide his face asked, "Well? What do you think?"

Enkrid answered without much feeling.

"Suits you."

The carriage began to move. It was heading toward the border, in the direction of Azpen.

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