WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 581

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The Holy Maiden opened her eyes and curled up like a cat. She did not thrash or panic, though. Her posture radiated wariness, but her eyes, when Enkrid looked into them, were calm. A composed child.

"Where is this, and who are you? And who's that big one?"

Quick to read the situation, too.

Enkrid answered everything she asked, one thing after another.

Once she had her answers, she glossed over what she did not understand and proved she had grasped the rest by asking follow-up questions.

"So a Holy Knight came, and the person who was chasing me is dead because of that Holy Knight, meaning I won't be dragged off right now. But I could still be in danger."

He nodded to confirm it. Then came words he had not expected. Even Enkrid was a little taken aback.

"Can we part ways here? I still have something left to do."

It was not that she was trying to flee the spot immediately. From his explanation so far, she seemed to have a firm grasp of her situation, things like how, if she were alone, the Church would eventually hunt her down.

He had also learned, in the meantime, who the girl was.

So she knew all of this, and still said that.

He had heard she was a Highlander, mountain folk, but even so, she knew perfectly well that slipping free of the Church's reach would not be easy.

Of course, no one could say what might happen if she made it back to the mountains and held out on her home ground. The Church might give up partway. Or they might set the mountain on fire just to catch her.

The future was something no one could know.

But looking only at the present, without any exaggeration, the safest place right now was beside Enkrid.

And she wanted to part ways?

"Can I ask what it is you still have to do?"

He asked out of pure curiosity, and Seiki answered right away. By this point her posture had relaxed a little. She had sat down properly, arms and legs resting at ease.

"Someone ended up in a difficult situation because I escaped. And..."

It did not sound like she was cutting herself off on purpose. More like she was debating whether to say the rest.

"And?"

Enkrid asked again, a signal that she could keep going.

"I think there might be other kids still being held, besides me."

Seiki laid it all out.

"So you're saying you want to go back to the place that was keeping you locked up?"

"I didn't know anything back then, but now I know the layout inside, and I know the situation. I don't know why you saved me, but I can't look at something like this and just turn away. I was already planning to go back once I escaped and got myself together."

There was no need to ask why. The answer was obvious.

To save people.

The same reason Enkrid had saved Seiki.

"In my view, what's happening there is wrong."

Seiki added that. When she said it, there was stubbornness behind the words. Sinar, watching, looked away from Seiki and fixed her gaze on Enkrid.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I am admiring the face of my fiancé."

That was clearly not the reason.

It was probably because the things this child Seiki was saying sounded like things Sinar herself would say.

Enkrid's jaw moved faintly up and down after hearing Seiki's words.

She was right. It was wrong. And he had no intention of walking past it.

If Audin had been there, he would have burst into tears and kept nodding, saying the girl was absolutely right.

Was that not exactly why Enkrid had set out, to knock that archbishop or whatever the title was over the head? Because he could not stand watching that sort of thing anymore.

To put it more nobly, one might call it a march to purify the Church.

"My grandfather always said, whether you live alone or with others, move forward according to what you believe is right."

Seiki finished. When those words left her mouth, there was not a shade of doubt in them. Meaning she truly believed it, from the bottom of her heart.

It was the same road Enkrid walked. There was no reason not to help.

"Do you remember where it is?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go together."

"I'd be grateful."

The girl had a clear-eyed grasp of reality, so there was no refusal. She answered immediately, as if she had been waiting for just this. Sinar, who had been watching, spoke up.

"You seem to have a soft spot for women and children."

Enkrid looked at her for a moment, then answered.

"I'm certain I don't have a soft spot for women who are older than me."

"...This one."

Sinar gave him a rare look, eyes sliding sideways in mild irritation. It was more surprising to see that expression on her face than a smile, and Enkrid laughed.

It was a late autumn morning, the temperature dropping sharply after an overnight rain.

Enkrid spoke to the coachman.

"We'll need to turn around."

"Pardon?"

"Let's head back toward the city."

The coachman asked no questions and simply did as told. As they turned back, Enkrid let his thoughts settle.

The Holy Maiden was saved, but the things she had not yet been able to do still remained.

Would it be difficult? It should not be.

* * *

"I was thinking of sneaking in to save them."

When the monastery came into view, Seiki laid out part of her plan.

It was a reasonably sensible approach.

Draw attention, get the people out, then escape.

Seiki had been unconscious when she first encountered Enkrid, so she had no idea what he was capable of. She had grown up in the mountains, and during the eight months she had spent outside, she had been confined to the monastery. She did not know what a knight was.

Sinar explained it to her kindly. After watching the girl for a few days, she found she genuinely did not mind her.

"Sneaking in? That won't be necessary."

"Wouldn't it be dangerous?"

When Seiki was imprisoned, she had seen the daily routines of the martial ascetics. They trained their bodies at every available moment.

Training obsessives who spent more than three hours a day conditioning themselves.

And there were more than twenty of them.

Seiki had not seen it directly, but she had figured it out from the volume of food supplies and other traces of human presence.

She was sharp. And she was not the kind of person to charge recklessly at something she knew could not be done.

Her original plan had included avoiding those martial ascetics entirely.

That plan was now beside the point.

The monastery sat near the western border of Naurillia.

They had sent the carriage back partway and continued on foot. Enkrid, Sinar, and Seiki were all solid walkers, so while they moved slower than the carriage, the pace was still respectable.

Along the way, watching Seiki walk and run and move, Enkrid began to understand how she had managed to stay on the run for so long.

She's nimble.

Being from Highlander stock was no idle claim.

When they arrived at the monastery entrance, two monks with hard, unfriendly faces glared at them.

Seiki had no idea what was about to happen, but she had seen something steady and unshakeable in both Enkrid and the elf Sinar.

She decided to trust them and follow their lead. Enkrid walked toward the monastery entrance with complete confidence.

Ahead stood a wide wooden door banded with iron woven through with vines, and a gray stone wall draped in creeping ivy stretching out to either side.

Seen from a distance, it could have been the sort of place where people lived quietly, tending their wine.

Most monasteries brewed wine or baked bread or made and sold soap and jam.

"Who are you? This is Church ground. No one enters without an invitation."

One of the monks guarding the entrance spoke. His forearms were thick enough to suggest his fists did more talking than his mouth.

"A guest."

Enkrid answered without breaking stride, walking straight toward the two monks.

"You're just going to walk in?"

Seiki whispered from behind. The two monks were already narrowing their eyes and reaching out their hands.

All Seiki heard was a pair of quick, swishing sounds.

Without a single groan, both monks' eyes rolled back to white and they pitched forward.

Enkrid bent his left knee slightly, as if performing something theatrical, and spread both arms wide, catching the falling pair by the midsection and lowering them gently to the ground. They lay with their heads lolled to the side. Unconscious.

"What... what did you just do?"

To her eyes, it was simply baffling.

Sinar added an explanation. She was not sure what it was about this task, but she seemed a touch buoyed by it. She was talking more than usual.

"He struck the Adam's apple and the jaw. Both hands, at the same time."

To be precise, he had spread his fingers wide and used the line between thumb and index finger to hit the Adam's apple, cutting off any sound before it could escape, then immediately closed his fist, twisted his arm, and drove an uppercut into the jaw.

Speed was part of it, but the control was something else entirely.

Neither of the two had a broken jaw. They were simply out.

A knight was, in the end, a being that had crossed some threshold ordinary people had not.

That was why, to an ordinary person's eye, what a knight did could look like something impossible.

What Enkrid had just shown was exactly that.

"Let's go."

Even if this was a corrupt monastery, walking in like this was the same as declaring war on the Church.

Anyone else would have shaken their head. Making an enemy of the Church just to save a few people? Did that make any sense?

Enkrid did not think about that for a single moment.

Even in the middle of the earlier fight, Audin's voice had come through clearly in his ears.

"You'll be hunted for the rest of your life."

That was what he had said.

If what he was doing now meant he would be hunted, then he would be hunted.

If it was the road he believed in, the road he knew was right, he would simply walk it.

That was how he had lived his entire life.

"You survived this long. Remarkable."

Sinar said it, guessing at the shape of Enkrid's past.

Seiki watched everything pass by with wide, quiet eyes, but the girl was no ordinary child either.

Surprised as she was, she did not stop at surprise. She did what needed doing.

She reasoned out where the people who had helped her were likely being kept and led the way toward that part of the monastery.

"Who are you!"

"What do you want!"

More monks came rushing out, but it came to nothing.

"Just visiting."

Enkrid said it without concern and moved his hands and feet as needed.

He was not at full physical condition, but it was not enough to matter.

A serviceable wooden staff picked up along the way served in place of a broken sword.

Then one monk came at him with an unusual blade, two hand-widths longer than an ordinary sword, and brought it down in a cut that was fast and sharp.

Only for that stroke did Enkrid draw his Shortsword and sweep it up.

He pulled the staff in his right hand back and drew the sword with his left, swinging in a single motion. Both arms crossed, and a flash of light rose with the clash.

Cling-cling-clang!

The sword Aetri had made cut the monk's blade clean in half, as if giving voice to its owner's will.

Strength and technique, combined with the quality of the weapon in hand. All of it in harmony.

That was the end of it.

The monk who had stepped forward went pale.

"I yield."

When he admitted defeat, the rest bowed their heads, and soon Seiki found those who had been imprisoned.

* * *

"Why did you do it, brother?"

A simple question, one that needed no koan.

"Do you need my answer?"

The Holy Maiden had escaped, and he had hidden her. Was that not answer enough? That was what the question meant.

"Did you want to be righteous alone? Are you satisfied?"

A bitter smile from someone who had been like a blood brother.

Should blame be placed on him?

Even if there were grounds for it, the monk could not do it. He had no right to make that judgment.

There was punishment.

Hot candle wax dripped into both eyes and both ears.

The reason given: he had eyes and could not see properly, ears and could not hear.

The punished monk had his head shaved bare, not a single hair remaining. The martial ascetic who oversaw the punishment looked down on him with contempt.

"You could have simply done nothing. Tsk."

He was Abbot Shilma's most loyal servant. The wax fell into both eyes, and more ran into the ears.

"Nnggh..."

Instead of screaming, the monk rolled across the floor like a wounded animal. It was agony. The pain ate through him. But his mind did not break.

Whose fault is this?

The monk could not lay blame even on the one inflicting the punishment.

That person, too, was only doing what someone above had ordered.

Then where did the fault lie?

The monk believed that assigning fault was not the answer. That this was simply a moment to press forward.

So he prayed for that. Let me move forward.

Lord, before you ask who is guilty, show us first the hope of salvation.

The belief that change is possible. That is what is needed.

If even a divine messenger descended, what then?

That would be something.

If that messenger came in fury and struck everyone down, those who witnessed it might still wake up and learn.

The monk's blurred gaze drifted to one side.

Beside the mildew-stained stone wall, a woman huddled against the stone.

A middle-aged priest, someone he had known since childhood, always skilled with a needle and thread. She would not be working her needle and thread the way she once had.

By tomorrow, both her hands would be cut off.

The wax dripped into his eyes had blinded one of them. The world now showed him only half of what it once had.

In the drift between sleep and waking, someone asked him a question.

"Do you regret it?"

No. Not at all.

Even if everyone in the Church cursed him and spat on him, leaving that child to her fate would have been wrong.

After letting Seiki go, the monk had tried to save another child imprisoned underground, but it had been impossible.

God, send a messenger.

Not to punish sin, but to bring guidance to those who are poor in spirit.

"Come any closer and I'll kill them!"

The prayer drifting in and out of his half-sleep was cut through when someone grabbed him by the throat. Breath on the back of his neck. The figure behind him yanked him close and pressed a short blade against his throat. The voice was familiar. Abbot Shilma's most loyal servant. The one who had overseen the punishment.

Huff, huff.

The breathing was ragged. Panic and fear mixed into each exhale.

Through the monk's clouded vision, someone was visible beyond the prison door.

A shadow came first, and with the torchlight at the figure's back, the face was hidden.

Only light, wrapping around him like a halo.

"If you kill me, you make an enemy of the Church!"

The one breathing fear spoke, and then the mouth of the messenger who had arrived wreathed in that halo opened.

"That's fine."

With those words, the light running from his back spilled forward.

That was how it looked to the monk.

An arm lifted, and the moment the torchlight that had appeared as a halo seeped through the monk's damaged eye, a part of that light grazed his face.

From behind him, warm liquid poured out and soaked his back.

Warmth reached a body that had been suffering on the cold prison floor.

Between warmth and light, through eyes gone dim, the monk asked.

"Has God's messenger come?"

The messenger answered without hesitation.

"No. My name is Enkrid. I came from the Border Guard. What I've done today I did by my own will, and if anyone wants to settle accounts, I won't run."

Through one eye, he saw the figure clearly.

To the monk, Enkrid looked like a rock that held its ground no matter how hard the waves crashed or the storms came.

So he was not God's messenger.

He was a hero who stood there saying he would not run from what he had done.

At least to the monk, he was exactly that.

A hero sent by God in place of a messenger.

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