WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 563: Why Stay in the Order?

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Make Rem vice-captain?

"I request the immediate withdrawal of this wrongful appointment."

That was what Jaxon would say.

"As the Lord does not permit it, I shall personally carry out His will."

Audin would clench both fists and step forward.

And Ragna.

'He'd start swinging before he said a word, wouldn't he?'

So the notion of vice-captain was out of the question. He dismissed it completely.

After a few more words, Rem let out what had been sitting inside him. He said it like there was nothing worth hiding.

"Once the Cursed Ground in the west is wiped out, everyone'll be fine and live how they want. By then you'll have lived however you wanted too, more or less. Me, I'll get old, spend my days smacking my wife on the backside, catch a few smacks in return, and watch my kids do cute things."

Rem looked at his twilight years with an ease that did not suit him at all.

"No thoughts of dying in the middle, or just dropping dead?"

Enkrid asked, genuinely puzzled. Watching the way he fought, you would not peg him as someone who counted on tomorrow.

His whole bearing read that way too.

But inside, it was different. Rem dreamed of the future. He dreamed of closing the Cursed Ground and wanted time with his wife and children.

The thought struck Enkrid without warning.

Even if Rem showed nothing on the surface, he must want to see his wife. Must want to see the child who had been born.

Was there anything Enkrid could do for that?

There probably was. He turned an idea over in his mind and looked at Rem. Rem answered the half-joking question.

"Die? Who? Me? What a thing to say. I'm not dying."

The corner of his mouth lifted, and that grin made it seem entirely believable.

He was not going to die. Confidence filled him to the brim and took shape as Will, and his pressure came through plainly.

If you looked closely, what Rem worked with was not Will but Sorcery, but to Enkrid they felt similar enough.

Rem had said as much himself, Sorcery or Will, they were alike in how they fortified the body.

"Right. Well, I'm off."

"Go on then. What was the point of all that?"

When Rem mentioned he was heading to the forge with some training tools, Enkrid asked him not to give Aetri too hard a time.

"Do I look like the type who goes around making things hard for people?"

If Enkrid did not nod here, he would have to reach inside himself, locate his conscience, and throw it out. And since pulling out your own organs meant certain death, and he still had things to do and wanted to live, that was not an option.

"Yeah."

So he nodded without hesitation.

"I don't appreciate that."

Rem grumbled, and Enkrid moved on to Ragna next.

He asked something similar to what he had asked Rem.

What did he want? Was the Order really the right place for him?

Ragna was a genius. The most gifted person Enkrid had ever laid eyes on.

That gift had bloomed, and now Ragna had found his own path.

He still could not settle on a direction when the road stretched out before him, but his sword had found where it was going.

You could tell just from sparring. His blade carried no doubt and no hesitation.

So when Ragna spoke, Enkrid listened.

"I intend to follow the path my sword can reach, all the way to the end. I need a worthy opponent for that, and going out to find one is a hassle. But if I stay beside the captain, they seem to come on their own."

Was he serious? He was.

Ragna was not the type to lie or say things he did not mean.

"Is that why you're staying in the Order?"

Because it's a hassle to leave.

That was not particularly shocking. Ragna had always been like this.

What followed was similar to the conversation with Rem. Ragna announced he wanted to be vice-captain.

He said that even if Enkrid was the center of the Order, someone needed to step out front and guide things, and then he launched into something close to an impassioned speech, which did not suit him at all.

When Enkrid said there was no such position, Ragna showed no irritation and pressed on with the same heat.

"If there's no vice-captain, shouldn't I at least be the First Sword?"

He furrowed his brow and spoke in a grave tone.

First Sword, Vanguard Blade, he was trying to invent a position that made no sense.

Even though he had been told he did not have to join the Order, he was thinking very seriously about his own rank within it.

"That position doesn't exist."

"Why not?"

"Because it doesn't."

"I see."

Getting him to drop it was easy enough. What was baffling was that someone too lazy to do things properly was showing this kind of enthusiasm over a title.

Then again, there was a reason the madman was called a madman.

He went to find Jaxon and asked the same thing.

"It's interesting. That's enough for me."

That was all. There was likely something more hidden beneath, but Jaxon was not the type to bring it out into the open.

He only watched Enkrid afterward with that unreadable look.

The meaning in those eyes seemed to ask: why are you even asking?

"Everyone has something they want. I can't hold anyone in the Order by force."

Enkrid said it plainly. Nothing to hide.

"I see."

Jaxon offered a faint smile.

Enkrid only shrugged.

If he had been born with the ability to read minds, he would have caught Jaxon's thoughts right then and tilted his head. After saying I see, Jaxon had been about to add that if even one person ended up leaving, he might hand over every piece of the Carmen Collection he had gathered so far. But he did not say it.

Step back far enough, and some things become obvious.

This Order revolved around one person, yet everyone within it was expressing their own will and intent. The one at the center had a vessel so large and wide that it held the will and intent of all of them, and so no one wanted to leave.

That was Jaxon's conclusion.

Either way, instead of voicing it, Jaxon made something close to a request in a measured tone.

"I don't need a separate position, but if you want, I'll take vice-captain."

"No. That doesn't exist."

Did the three of them plan this? He could not understand why they all said the same thing.

He told Jaxon once more that there were no positions aside from captain, and Jaxon simply said, "Yes, I see," and left it there.

It did not seem like something he particularly wanted, anyway.

Or maybe he had anticipated Enkrid would say there was no such thing as vice-captain.

Audin and Sinar were coming along anyway, so he decided to ask them on the way. After that he met with Ropord and Fell, then Ruagarne and Teresa.

There had also been some business about visitors from the Empire wanting an audience, but aside from training hours, Enkrid was already busy enough seeing the others, talking with Aetri now and then, and handling the bare minimum that Krais said needed doing.

Running a large territory meant some things required his personal approval.

On top of that, Graham came by from time to time seeking guidance, Enkrid watched over the training of soldiers who were serious about improving, and he got involved in the training of the group called the Trading Company Escort as well, so he was genuinely stretched thin.

Visitors claiming to be from the Empire or the southern great power got cheerfully ignored.

The purpose was obvious anyway.

Like the blind old man who had called himself a Cultist and left a letter once, it was all the same: come to the Empire and we will give you this, come south and we will give you that.

So the next person he made time for was Teresa.

"I like it here."

Did he need to ask more?

Teresa spoke without being pressed.

"Singing makes me happy. Fighting is fun. Coming here is where I learned these things existed in the world. I have come to know the teachings of the Lord Father anew."

And all of it was possible because of you.

Teresa swallowed those last words. He would know without being told.

Enkrid nodded.

Reading the moment, it seemed like the right time to nod and pat her on the shoulder to show he understood.

But as for what Teresa was truly feeling inside, he was no god, so how would he know?

He simply took it as it was. She did seem genuinely happy, after all.

Honestly, among the people currently at his side, Teresa was one of the most content. Spending time with Audin, praying, singing, wandering the city. All of it. You could see plainly that she enjoyed every hour of it.

"I am a Shepherd of the Wilderness. That will not change until I die. But right now, I want to sharpen my lacking talent here."

Fell had become polite at some point, Enkrid could not say exactly when. Even the words themselves carried a tone of asking to be allowed to stay.

Was the change in attitude heading somewhere bad?

It did not seem so.

If anything, Fell was working harder than before, putting full effort into everything.

The way Fell competed with Ropord while also getting along with him was much the same.

"Yeah, go ahead."

A simple nod was the right answer.

And if someday Fell returned to the Shepherds of the Wilderness, Enkrid would not stop them.

"It is an honor."

Ropord nodded without even needing to be asked.

"Your original unit is the Red Cloak Knights, isn't it?"

"Oh, I already withdrew from them."

Not really something to say while grinning cheerfully, but Ropord smiled brightly all the same.

To Ropord, Enkrid and Ragna and all the others were people he could not help but respect. And now he was with them. The time Ropord had spent at Border Guard was the most concentrated stretch of his life, richer than anything that had come before.

Of course it was.

"Even if you drove me out, I'd stay on as a Squire. If not that, then as a regular soldier."

"Stay in the Order," Enkrid said. "As a junior knight."

He had made it as far as Squire in the Red Cloak Knights, so Ropord was no ordinary talent, Enkrid found it a little excessive that Ropord would even say something like that.

Next was Ruagarne.

"Wouldn't the picture look better with a Frog in it? Especially a beautiful one?"

He could not quite tell what made a Frog beautiful, but Enkrid nodded.

Had she not said herself, not long ago, that she had gotten prettier?

"Right then. A beautiful Frog knight. Not bad."

Did Frogs even have a concept of knighthood? They did, but it was rare. She said she had never seen one in her lifetime, though records of it existed somewhere.

After asking those who needed asking and receiving answers from all of them, Enkrid carried out a rather drastic personnel decision.

"You're in the Order too."

That was directed not at a person but at a horse.

"Hiiieee!"

Odd-Eye reared up on its hind legs, front hooves high, and cried out.

What in the world was wrong with this animal.

Enkrid had said it on a whim and surprised himself all over again.

Odd-Eye had been coming around and glaring at him, and that was what had prompted it. It almost seemed like the horse had been waiting to be told to join.

Drinking that holy spring water had made it more human than before.

Watching it sprint across the fields all day, occasionally kicking a Demon Creature to death or biting one, it played with its enemies in a way that went beyond clever. Seeing that, it felt sharper than most people.

"Right. Earn back the cost of that spring water."

At those words, Odd-Eye's two mismatched eyes shone with different lights. The horse let out a surge of Will to express its meaning.

It would.

It seemed to say: you will not be disappointed.

'I was just saying it.'

He could not understand why everyone got so fired up.

"You can call me Magic Knight Esther."

Esther came by later and said that, and here again Enkrid nodded.

Odd-Eye was a horse, so that was a different matter, but he had asked Esther because she was worth asking.

"Why are you still with the Order?"

Esther was a witch, and plainly speaking, there was no reason for her to stay.

Her highest priority was not saving people, and loyalty to a nation was even further down the list.

In truth, there were probably very few people here who had stayed out of loyalty to any nation.

"A mage is one who seeks. Right now, I find satisfaction in seeking you and seeking the world. So I have no intention of leaving. If you are worried I might slip away easily, we could form a covenant or a contract."

She might have heard the question as an accusation.

Esther said it all in one breath without stopping.

The mention of a covenant and a contract showed she meant it.

"A contract? That's not necessary."

Forcing someone to stay was not something Enkrid could do. He knew that well. How could anyone give their best in their place if they were kept there by outside pressure?

There was no need to keep someone at his side who was staying against their will, so a contract meant nothing.

"Fine, then I'll stay. As a Magic Knight, it seems."

Esther said it and let out a soft, muffled laugh, rare in its own right, separate from Sinar's smile.

Esther did not laugh often, but she could laugh like that: quietly, shoulders shaking, a small sound escaping. It was a surprisingly cute sound coming from her.

Something about it called to mind a squirrel. He almost asked her to try transforming into one sometime.

He kept that to himself. He did not want to see that warm expression go flat.

"Hmm. Anyway, I'll be off."

Esther muttered something about what it might look like, a Magic Knight carrying a black flower, and swept away.

And so the members of the Order were settled.

He was captain.

Below him, Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, and Audin formed the core. Dunbakel would return, and if she wanted to stay, she would. Teresa and Audin were a pair. Ropord had asked to train under Ragna.

Jaxon preferred working alone. Ruagarne and Fell were both escort and Order members under Enkrid.

That was the whole of it.

Nothing grand was required.

Enkrid let his thoughts settle as he took in the autumn sky, the wind, the clouds, the sunlight. Then he looked at the two who remained.

Two left to ask, and both were walking beside him right now.

He started with the elf walking quietly at his side, smooth and unhurried.

"Will you be joining the Order?"

Sinar looked at him. Green eyes met his directly, eyes that were difficult to read, hard to know what she was thinking or what she was feeling. Enkrid had once overheard her talking with Crang.

He knew because he had heard it then. Unlike the others, she must have some deeper purpose driving her.

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