WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 567: Alone

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The tea had gone cold. Enkrid had no desire to drink it. The refreshments sat untouched. He sank into thought.

Krais had once said that Enkrid was exceptional at working things through in his head.

"Pardon?"

Deutsch had been sitting across from him in the reception room, on the worn but plush sofa facing a plain, unadorned table cut from bare wood. He blinked slowly, then asked again, belatedly.

What was that supposed to mean?

He was probably wondering why someone asking about a kidnapping would want to know the kidnapper's reasons here, of all places.

"If there's a Holy Maiden around, can someone use her to make potions or something like that?"

Enkrid asked.

Deutsch blinked.

"Me, sir?"

"Yeah."

What is he asking this for?

"No."

Bewildered as he was, Deutsch answered without hesitation.

"Is there anyone who could do that?"

"Would there be?"

Common sense said no.

Nobody outside the Church knew how the potions produced within it were made. The only certainty was that it fell outside the realm of alchemy.

Wielding divine power did not make just anyone a Holy Maiden or Holy Man.

This line of thinking drew on what Audin had once told him, trying as best he could to see things from the kidnapper's perspective.

Was this someone who kidnapped a Holy Maiden dreaming of making potions?

If that was the goal, wouldn't studying alchemy be the smarter move?

Or was this person dying of some illness and trying to get treated?

Even granting that much, it still made no sense.

'Because I would never do it that way.'

Say he had the capability to abduct a Holy Maiden. Say he was also dying of some illness. What would be the right move?

Getting past the layers upon layers of protection around a temple, over and over, just to kidnap a Holy Maiden, that was hard. Impossibly, unreasonably hard.

If it came to that, he would rather make a deliberate run at a few great noble estates instead.

That would be far, far, far easier.

With that kind of haul, he could make a donation large enough to secure treatment without anyone asking a single question, in one stroke.

Faster, easier, and simpler than kidnapping a Holy Maiden.

"Then why would anyone do it?"

There was no gain. Not a killing, but a kidnapping. And a kidnapping meant a clear purpose behind it.

In other words, some kind of profit had to be involved, and right now there was none in sight.

Another Church kidnapping a Holy Maiden out of jealousy and dragging her back to their own faith? A war comparable to the Holy Sword War would break out the moment it came to light.

The Holy Sword War was covered even in the opening chapters of history books. A sacred sword had been discovered at a ruin, and every Church that saw it claimed the blade was the Sacred Object of the god they worshipped. That dispute had ignited the war.

The number of people killed reportedly exceeded ten thousand.

The records were so old that accurate sources no longer existed, but it was enough to say a staggering number had died.

Afterward, the various Churches reconciled in dramatic fashion and merged into one, so that such a tragedy would never happen again.

Each might believe in a different god, but all the Churches became brothers and sisters.

At first it may have been nothing but a surface arrangement, yet time had stitched and bound them together until now they were one in name and in truth.

"It isn't a kidnapping, then."

Audin knew the Church better than Enkrid did. He had seen it from the inside and from the outside, and so he reached the conclusion faster.

"Most likely."

Enkrid said the same, arriving there naturally.

"I'm afraid I don't follow what you're saying..."

Deutsch trailed off, staring at Enkrid, unable to make sense of the situation. Enkrid decided it was more useful to ask for what he needed than to bother explaining.

"When the people from the temple left, did they simply go?"

The question came from experience.

If you were chasing something and your target was slipping away too cleanly, what did you do?

'If it were me, I'd add more eyes.'

Something difficult alone becomes manageable with two, and easy enough with ten.

So you simply expand the number of people who will follow your orders without question.

Where do you find people like that?

The world is full of those who will fight like ghouls for a few gold coins.

Rare as it was for that Church, that Holy State, to spend Krona freely, still.

"Oh, yes. They asked us to tighten the city checkpoints, and..."

"And?"

"They asked whether there was an information guild in the city."

It seemed at least one of the Holy State's pursuers had a reasonably sharp head. They had gone through the same chain of reasoning and landed on the idea of adding more people.

Enkrid looked up.

"Who, and where?"

Deutsch was sharp enough that he was beginning to sense the mood.

This felt like a very unpleasant situation to have stumbled into.

Enkrid read the man's thoughts and spoke first.

"There won't be any harm to you."

Deutsch's expression soured slightly, but he shook his head.

"Even if there were, I'd bear it."

No thought of backing down. His will showed through clearly.

He had watched the man who saved this city from the Gnoll raid, and watching that man had driven him to build his own strength day by day and steady his heart.

Enkrid had assumed Deutsch became mayor because he read situations quickly, but the greater part of it was that the people who had pioneered this place together had lifted him up.

After the Gnoll raid, Deutsch had lived for this city more than anyone.

It had all started with his admiration for one man's heroism.

Deutsch had not forgotten it.

He had lived as a mercenary for many years, and a sharp-eyed mercenary survived a long time, but one with loyalty on top of that survived even longer.

"If there's anything you need, I'll have it brought."

Enkrid saw no reason to refuse the offer.

"Information, the movements of people, does the information guild deal only in information?"

The answer was in the question. Deutsch replied.

"It's called the Brotherhood. A gang put together by a handful of criminals."

"I want to know everything they were told by the people from the Church, and everything they've been doing."

"Everything?"

"Give me the location and I'll handle it myself."

"No."

Deutsch shook his head, and Enkrid could not argue against what the man had decided.

When someone offers help from the heart, how do you turn it down?

Purely in terms of efficiency, a native who had been here from the city's founding, and its mayor on top of that, would do the job better anyway.

"Half a day should be enough. If you haven't eaten, please have a meal, sir knight."

Deutsch bowed to the Iron Wall knight and stepped out.

Enkrid watched him go, then did exactly as he had been told and asked for food.

"Yes, yes."

A maid answered twice in her nervousness, then brought out an assortment of dishes.

In the meantime, Enkrid drained the cold tea in one go to wet his throat, then looked at Audin.

Audin's eyes held no particular shine and he appeared to have nothing on his mind, but Enkrid was not fooled.

He was masking calm.

His heart probably wasn't churning wildly right now, but his nerves would be on edge.

"We will save the child."

Audin said.

Enkrid nodded.

"Goes without saying."

Sinar added.

If it had been a kidnapping, the child's own will would not have entered into it.

But a flight?

That was different. What should you do when you see a child being persecuted and abused?

What if that child's suffering, the abuse they endured, was for the peace of the continent?

He didn't know. And it wasn't his problem. Honestly, the idea that the peace of an entire continent rested on a single child was nonsense.

So they would save the child first.

If all of this turned out to be a mistake, a misunderstanding, a genuine error, if the child really had been kidnapped? That was fine too.

Pulling the child out meant erasing one debt the Holy State owed them.

But if it truly was a flight, then it didn't matter whether the other side was the Holy State or anything else.

* * *

Roge was the head of the largest Brotherhood in Pelheim.

He had brothers who had been with him since childhood, and an organization he had built after settling in the pioneer city.

Bang!

The Brotherhood's base, set up in a warehouse on the city's outskirts, had its door smashed open.

"What the hell?"

Roge tucked his chin and gripped the handle of his dagger. The face of whoever stood in the doorway was blacked out by the light behind them.

The midday sun shone at their back.

Roge narrowed his eyes. The build looked oddly familiar.

He could make out the long weapon held in the figure's right hand.

A blade fixed to the end of a polearm.

'A glaive?'

The figure in the doorway spoke.

"Subdue them. If they resist, kill them all."

At those words, soldiers poured in.

They were plainly Pelheim's own city guard, the Self-Defense Force, the city's core fighting strength. Not the kind of people a criminal Brotherhood could match.

"Wha, wait?"

The Brotherhood members panicked. Were they supposed to fight? Every one of them gripped their daggers but didn't draw, just hesitated.

"Jake?"

Some Brotherhood members knew soldiers personally. One tried to say hello, but the soldier ignored it.

"Stay put. Drop your weapons."

Jake said it. The spearhead in his hand made clear this was not a situation where jokes or familiarity would get anyone anywhere.

The blade slid forward and stopped in front of the familiar face's stomach.

Jake's eyes were cool and his voice was flat.

"Drop it."

Roge had always thought of his group as the oxpecker birds of the city, scratching wherever it itched. He had never met Doitchi Fullman personally, but he had quietly spread word that the two of them were responsible for the day and night of this one city.

Doitchi had never bothered to argue with that. Up until now.

They had a relationship of mutual respect, didn't they? So what was this?

"I told you to come yourself, didn't I?"

Doitchi Fullman said it. The scar across his face looked more vicious than Roge had ever noticed before.

A pioneer city was a place where people lived with risk. That meant rough types gathered here naturally.

Many things had happened in the city even after Enkrid wiped out the Gnoll Colony.

The fact that Doitchi had risen from security captain to mayor of a pioneer city meant he had resolved all those many things, and resolved them well.

Part of that was ignoring the clumsy provocations that came from inside and outside the city. Another part was letting any group that didn't cause serious trouble go about their business.

That kind of attitude lulled others into carelessness. When something actually happened and Doitchi moved decisively, whatever poor fool had become his target could only sit there blinking, exactly like this.

Standard tactics, really, but people who didn't know it always got caught.

Same as now.

"Hey, what was your name again? Roge? Ruge? Should I take an ear off first and we can talk after?"

Doitchi Fullman stepped forward to resolve things the way he usually did.

His version of resolution generally involved bold use of force.

When he kept his hands to himself, he'd give a quiet warning look. But once his hands moved, they moved decisively.

Without going this far, people who stabbed others in alleyways and left them for dead would come flocking to the city thinking it was a fine place to be.

He did not tolerate that.

There were other reasons Pelheim maintained the level of order it did, but everyone acknowledged that Doitchi Fullman's glaive had played its part.

"Tell me quietly. Nothing good comes from bloodshed."

Roge felt the humiliation in Doitchi's words, and immediately yanked out his dagger.

Schlick.

The blade caught the light. Roge ground his teeth.

Then he set the dagger gently on the floor.

Knife-tip pointing toward himself, neatly and politely.

"Yes, castellan."

What was a little humiliation?

Staying alive was what mattered.

He talked. There wasn't much of a secret to it anyway.

An Inquisitor who had come from the Holy City had placed the order. Following that commission, they had searched among the travelers passing through the city for a girl traveling 'alone.' It wasn't a particularly hard job, and the pay had been generous. At the client's request, they had also tracked down some hunters who caught people and passed the commission along.

"Alone?"

Doitchi Fullman cut in.

"Never mind. Keep going."

He urged Roge to continue.

Roge said yes and went through it all, piece by piece.

Doitchi had a head on his shoulders, so he thought things through.

Following the shape of the story, he understood what business had brought Enkrid here. He'd also received a letter from the kingdom before all this.

But if the Inquisitors or Holy Warriors from the Holy City had made a request of him directly, something he himself could have handled, why had they spent Krona to use a Brotherhood like Roge's, practically parasites on the city?

That Church? The one with rumors circulating that they secretly sold rock salt because the smell of pennies clung to them so badly? Could that Church really spend money like that?

'Something stinks.'

The word 'alone' had also snagged in his mind.

Doitchi Fullman went to report to Enkrid what he had learned, sending out his men at the same time.

His plan was to track down where the Holy Warriors and the priests had gone, starting from what he had gathered.

"They've already left the city, sir."

A lieutenant who had quickly assessed the situation came up and reported. Doitchi asked as he walked.

"Direction?"

"East, sir."

By the time Doitchi returned to Enkrid, he had heard everything he needed. He relayed all his guesses and everything he knew.

Enkrid asked the exact same question Doitchi had.

"Alone?"

"Yes, apparently alone."

Enkrid straightened and thought.

Not a kidnapping, a flight. His guess appeared to be right. Audin had heard it too.

"You said alone, Mayor? Are you certain?"

"Yes."

No hard evidence, but a strong hunch, and now a witness account to go with it. Enkrid decided on his own to change the terms of the commission.

From helping the priests' pursuit party recover the Holy Maiden, to finding the pursued child first.

One question still lingered, though.

'But how has she not been caught yet?'

Back in his bounty hunting days, he had memorized the names of famous hunters. Three of them had been considered the most skilled.

He had heard two were dead now and one had retired.

Strangely, all three had been former Church members.

He had wondered about that and asked, and the person who taught him the trade had said this:

"The Church is the best at chasing people down. That's certain."

When he asked why, the hunter who trained him had smiled.

"Why do you think? Because they've done it so many times."

Hunting required experience more than talent.

When people were branded heretics, many ran, and chasing them down one by one built the skill over time.

And a child who had once been a kidnapping victim, now a fugitive Holy Maiden, was currently fleeing those very Church pursuers.

It was stranger than anything a spell could conjure.

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