WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 553: The Blood-Mad Youngest

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Harrison was a noble who worked his own land.

His skin burned under the sun. His hair thinned and fell away in the heat. None of that changed anything. He lived as he chose.

Why?

Because he loved the land. Because the work brought him joy. Because his purpose in life was clear.

So it made no difference if someone mocked him for going bald, or cursed him as a miser.

Did he not indulge himself? He did, actually, more than any king ever could.

Who tasted the finest wheat, grain, and fruit grown from his own land first, a king, or him? Him. Always him.

No luxury compared to that. He was a noble and a farmer both.

"Is the safe road the only thing you need?"

Enkrid asked again.

Harrison found the other man's reaction strange. He had never met anyone like this before.

Had anyone ever tried to do this much for him without being asked? There was no price attached, no demand that he come under Enkrid's banner.

A noble placing themselves under another noble was not unusual. The Duke of Okto led his own circle of nobles the same way.

But Enkrid seemed to want nothing.

He was just going to do it.

"Why are you being so good to me?"

Harrison asked.

He had stood in Enkrid's way. He had known the man's reputation and still picked a fight. If Enkrid had threatened to cut off an arm or a leg over hurt pride, Harrison would have had nothing to say in his defense. That said, he had no intention of handing one over quietly, either.

"No reason."

Enkrid did not bother explaining himself. This was simply who he was.

Harrison, hearing it for the first time, was thrown off.

Then the grey-haired noble-slayer stepped over, cup in one hand, sipping at it in a way that suited him better than expected.

"He's just like that, he is. There's probably a reason, but don't bother trying to figure it out, you'll only give yourself a headache. Never mind that, though. Have you heard about the wildcat who got ditched by so many women his heart burned black as coal?"

Rem had been spreading Jaxon's nickname for a while now.

Harrison let Rem's words go in one ear and out the other, his eyes staying on Enkrid. He had not said anything with his gaze, but Enkrid spoke anyway.

"Work your land. If that is what you dream of, do it."

"See? No reason."

Rem said.

Harrison could only stare at a face that looked carved from stone.

The words had struck him like lightning. He could not find anything to say back.

A dream? Did Enkrid know what he was actually saying?

Harrison had tried to build something like a safe road inside his own territory, had even kept a Self-Defense Force for it, but what sounded easy in words cost an absurd amount of work and money in practice.

Bringing in mercenaries to solve it was no different from inviting a gang of bandits onto his land.

Things could go fine if they went fine, but what if the mercenaries decided as a group to seize the territory? What if they caused trouble? What if one of them stabbed a resident by mistake and called it an accident? Did he have the strength to punish them for it?

In the end he had to build a Self-Defense Force from people he could actually trust, and talent with a sword was not something you found in abundance.

He could build walls and hold them, but raising enough fighters to guard every field on the estate was a different problem entirely.

Above all else, Harrison knew how to grow farmers. Growing warriors was another matter.

It was only because a small number of wandering swordsmen who wanted to settle down had lent him their strength that things held together at all.

Even so, Harrison wanted to protect every inch of his farmland and breathe life back into the dead patches scattered across the territory.

From what he knew, it was possible. Not easy, never easy. He understood that as well as anyone.

But still, it has to be done.

For the sake of descendants who did not yet exist. For the land to become something better. For a life that was more than what he had now. All of it had to be done.

Yet every time he tried, the people around him talked him out of it.

"You're already living well off the land as it is. Do you really have to go this far?"

"Why do you want to expand?"

"People dying to Demon Creatures is just part of life out here. But there's no need to go looking for it."

No. It is not just part of life.

He was not trying to accept people dying to Demon Creatures as the price of expanding his land.

He wanted to farm safely, to protect those who wanted to work the earth, to give them something better. Was that not the duty of a lord responsible for his land?

That was how he saw it. Others laughed at him for it.

The miser who grubs around in the dirt.

That was what people who knew him called him.

And now.

Enkrid, lord of the knight order bearing the unprecedented name of the Madman Knights.

Hero of Border Guard. Demon Slayer. The Iron Wall knight.

A man who had every right to dismiss Harrison with far worse words was saying this to him.

Work the land. See your dream through.

Harrison's mind drifted to something his wife had said, waiting for him at home.

"If the God of Abundance has need of you, perhaps the blessing will come then."

Why was that coming back to him now?

Because now was that moment? He did not know. But even if no god was involved, Harrison chose to believe that this was it.

Life was granted by a god, but living it out was a matter of the will held by the one who lived.

He measured himself against that thought and made his decision.

He reached into his chest pocket, drew out a new glass bottle, and said, "Hand back what I gave you before. Let's trade."

Enkrid did not ask what it was. He handed his own bottle over without a word. The glass bottles passed between their hands.

Dozens of pairs of eyes were watching the two of them.

Marquis Barnas and the Duke of Okto, who had settled in at some point, were among them. But it was not just those two. Crang had claimed a spot as well.

Custom held that you announced the king's arrival in a loud voice, but Crang had stopped that. Something clearly interesting was happening, and he was in no hurry to interrupt it.

Harrison was well known by reputation.

The stubborn noble who worked his own land and brought in his own harvests.

His territory was genuinely unusual. Every person living on it was required to study and research ways to increase the yield. The lord himself led by example, and there were people in the territory whose entire purpose was exactly that kind of work.

Whether it was because of that, or just a whim of the gods, a real divine blessing had come to his land roughly ten years ago.

Not a good harvest, not something you could explain away as luck. Something with true divine nature had happened.

A small spring welled up from the ground, left enough water for a single sip, then disappeared.

Harrison had been out before dawn with his pitchfork, heading for the fields, when he found it. He cupped the water gently in his hands. Not a single drop fell. Every bit of it stayed right where he held it.

He carried it home carefully and poured it into a glass bottle he never used because it cost too much, then sealed it shut. That was the famous holy spring water.

No one knew what the water actually did, but word had already spread far and wide that the divine nature within it was real.

A high-ranking Priest had come asking for it in the name of a god's will and been turned down. A major trading company had pressed him for it, and he had flat-out denied it existed.

"There's no such thing, I tell you. Does that even make sense? Water that stays in your palm without spilling? Ridiculous."

When word spread that Harrison always kept a glass bottle on his person, he went out and bought a few potions to carry around instead.

Even those potions cost more than their weight in gold.

"This is the holy spring water."

He had just taken it out, the very thing he had stuck out his tongue denying he ever had. Enkrid put the glass bottle, sealed with a cork and wrapped tight over that, into his own pocket.

He did not look at it closely. He did not ask whether it was real. He took it because it was offered.

In truth, it could have been a potion or a gold ring and it would not have mattered.

Enkrid had simply taken it because it was handed to him.

If an expensive wine cost as much as the same weight in gold, and a healing potion required three times that weight to buy, then this was something you could not acquire even by piling on ten times the gold.

Not the sort of thing you handed over without a second thought.

"Oh..."

One of the watching nobles sucked in a sharp breath.

He just gave that away?

Enkrid registered the reaction around him and asked, "That seems like a rare thing. Why give it to me?"

The question was half a joke. Harrison answered with a rough, unguarded smile, the kind he had not shown once from the great hall until this moment.

"No reason."

"I'll put it to good use."

"See that you do."

That was the end of it. Harrison did not make Enkrid swear to keep his promise. He did not press for anything.

Anyone who did not know better would have found it baffling, though Crang and a few others understood. Enkrid had never held any ill will toward Harrison to begin with.

For the people who did not know that, this went beyond strange.

"Why would he give that away."

"What's gotten into those two?"

"His face, probably."

Some of them were talking nonsense, but it was just something that had passed between the two men. Harrison had given over something of his, and Enkrid had agreed to do what he wanted. That was all there was to it.

"Ha. Didn't even need to hold my breath for that one."

Crang said it from among the onlookers, and the people who recognized the king quickly stepped back.

"Oh, Your Majesty."

"When did you get here!"

"Go on as you were. Don't mind me."

Crang said that, then stepped forward and spoke to Enkrid.

"I told you not to hate him, and you went and gave him a hard time anyway?"

He was a close friend, but in a setting like this he was still the king. Then again, this was a banquet hall, which could be argued was not an official occasion.

"Who gave who a hard time?"

The joke was that Enkrid had bullied Harrison into giving up something precious. Enkrid had fired right back.

"Never mind, then."

Crang got things moving.

"I hear you're still alone. Any reason for that?"

The Duke of Okto pushed straight in.

"Does there need to be a reason?"

"Doesn't need to be one. But I heard Kin settled in at Border Guard. Did you know?"

Marquis Bysar cut in next. Everyone jumped in as though they had been waiting the whole time.

"He probably doesn't know. Head of the family."

Kin Bysar had also come back to the capital on her own business and happened to be present. She said this to Marquis Bysar, then looked toward Enkrid, gave a slight nod in greeting, and spoke.

"You remember my name by now, at least?"

Some people lost their heads just looking at Enkrid's face and bearing. Others did not. Kin Bysar was the latter.

She kept a reasonable distance.

His looks were extraordinary, but she was not foolish enough to give her heart to a man who had no interest in her.

"Not a name I'm likely to forget."

Enkrid returned the greeting smoothly.

After that came the banquet itself. Drinking, eating, enjoying. The ordinary kind.

That said, nobody ended up sprawled out drunk. Nobody had the nerve to make a fool of themselves in front of the king.

On top of that, everyone was busy trying to catch Enkrid's eye and leave an impression.

There were young nobles who looked at him with envy, but the ones who respected or admired him outnumbered them several times over.

Even the envy was mostly about his face.

"What are you supposed to do when someone looks like that on top of everything else."

Those words came out more than once.

Even the ones who envied him acknowledged his ability.

Now and then you could spot the noble-slayer moving through the crowd, starting up conversations with one person after another.

Apart from the rumor that he was some kind of violent loose cannon, Rem was actually clean-cut. Especially when it came to women.

"Your name is Rem, isn't it?"

A noblewoman who had lost her husband early and been on her own since laid a hand on Rem's arm and drew it slowly across. It was a signal: I'm interested in you.

"I have a wife."

Rem turned her down in one sentence. It happened a few more times. Each time, Rem showed no sign of irritation and went right back to talking.

No force, no cold edge to any of it.

Just conversation. Sipping at his drink, eating the food, the bread, the pastries, the sweets, talking all the while.

The kind of scene that showed up at banquets all the time.

What stood out was that Rem made no distinction by rank or by gender. He struck up conversations with the guards who had come along as escorts too, and among them were more than a few whose growth had stalled.

He gave them all the same kind of advice.

"Hey, you. Train consistently first. Blaming talent when your belly's gone soft? Want me to split your head open with an axe?"

The words had a bit of an edge, but the person saying them and the people hearing them all took it as a joke.

And that was fine, wasn't it.

The line he always dropped at the end was roughly the same every time.

"You heard that rumor spreading around Border Guard? About the wildcat who got dumped so many times he wanders around every night? It's not just a rumor? What? You're saying that, setting my reputation aside, I don't seem like that type? Sure, I'm not. But that cat is real. His name is Jaxon. Don't forget it."

That sort of thing.

He grabbed onto servants, ladies-in-waiting, guards, nobles, young and old, it did not matter, and talked to every last one of them.

Audin, by contrast, the man who insisted his reputation as a bear Beastfolk was a misunderstanding, simply watched what was happening around him. People did come up and speak to him, and he answered, but he was not lively the way Rem was.

Even so, Audin said what he had to say.

"The scheming wildcat? Yes, very much real. Ah, and the blood-crazed killer, yes, he does enjoy the sight of blood, but he's laid up in bed right now. You'd have to say it's because he's been slacking on his training. The youngest member, ah, that's more of a title inside the knight order, don't worry about it. I've said too much. Lord, Father above. Punish this inadequate mouth of mine."

"So the blood-crazed killer is the youngest member?"

"That just slipped out. Please forget it."

Rem had gone about it bluntly, but Audin used a more refined method.

Tell someone to spread a rumor and they clam up. Tell them to forget something, and they carry it further.

That was the moment the madman youngest member was born.

Of course, for now, no one understood any of this yet.

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