WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 584: The Child's Words

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"Did working him too hard drive him mad?"

"Ah, what do you mean too hard, and how much? Why would that drive anyone mad? Besides, even I'd feel like laughing at the absurdity of it, so I can't blame him."

This was about the fact that none other than the head of the city, lord of the Border Guard domain, and master of the knight order had gone out and smacked the Holy Order across the back of the head.

That was how Krais answered Enkrid's question while looking at Abnaier.

Neither of them could have known the change happening inside Abnaier.

They only saw a man suddenly laughing like someone who had lost his mind.

After letting Enkrid in, Krais turned toward Abnaier. There was no point trying to talk their commander out of anything, so he had not said a word against him, but deep in his chest, a heavy anxiety was rising.

It was the same as always. He was the type who imagined the worst possible outcome no matter the situation.

If things play out like this.

The moment the anxiety crested, Krais's sharp mind began working faster.

If the Holy State doesn't resort to force, what will they do first?

What could they do to interfere, obstruct, and make life difficult?

If he were in their position, he would do everything possible to extend influence over this region.

Worst-case scenarios churned through his head in a jumble.

At the same time, he thought about what preparations would be needed to counter each one.

He had a rough picture drawn. Still, he ought to confirm whether it was correct.

In a situation like this, having a strategist better than himself nearby was one of the few comforting things.

"Abnaier, hear me out and tell me if this makes sense."

Krais laid out his plan. He talked without pause, leaving no gap for Abnaier to cut in.

Because he never knew when or how Enkrid might cause an incident, Krais had been making various preparations for a long time already.

Some of them covered what support to provide if a demon suddenly underwent divine manifestation and they had to fight with everything they had.

It was possible Enkrid might go out, pick a fight with a demon, and come strolling back.

That's not impossible, is it?

The demons of the Cursed Ground rarely advanced all the way to the continent proper, but Krais figured it could happen. It had been one of the ten worst nightmares he had ever had.

"You dream in remarkable detail."

His lover Nurat had called him impossibly fussy about it, but he had prepared anyway. Conflict with the Holy Order was relatively manageable compared to a demon divine manifestation.

Insane, yes, but manageable by comparison.

"You already have everything planned out, so why bother asking?"

Abnaier said that partway through listening, and Krais scolded him.

"Pay attention. Does this look like someone else's problem to you? This is for everyone's benefit. If the Holy Order starts playing games and people around here end up starving and going hungry, then what? Hm? Is Azpen supposed to be happy about that?"

"No, that's not what I meant..."

This man had everything worked out already, then asked anyway. What sincerity was he pretending to seek?

Abnaier tried to defend himself along those lines, but Krais kept scolding him, then let out a long sigh.

"Anyway, this is what we're doing."

Abnaier took in the broad outline of Krais's plan, filed it away, and then threw out the real question he had been sitting on.

"Do you not resent him?"

Krais rolled his eyes with anxiety and still did what needed to be done. It was genuinely strange, and Abnaier was curious how someone could take something like this in stride.

Were there people on this continent who lived at odds with the Holy Order?

Even the king of the southern great power would not casually do such a thing. The Emperor of the Empire might be a different story.

Krais answered without laughing or crying, as though it were nothing remarkable.

"No. I'm used to it. Actually, the original name of this knight order was the Troublemaker Knight Order."

Hearing that, Abnaier thought the name suited them well enough.

Though, the first time people heard the name Knight Order of Madness, they had probably also wondered what on earth it was. So the word "troublemaker" could never really serve as a proper knight order name.

"In a few days I'll be calling a meeting, so Abnaier, you'll be attending."

Krais ended there and walked off briskly. He seemed to have a great many things to handle. There was irritation in his departing stride, but no resentment. He carried himself like a man doing what had to be done.

Looking around, the entire city was the same way.

Many had already heard the news, yet worry and dread took up very little space among them. Far too little.

"He's back."

"Does training start again tomorrow?"

Some worried about how hard the Iron Wall Knight would push them once he returned.

"Please, a break. A break. Give me a break. I'll sell my soul."

There were soldiers who looked half like Ghouls, calling out for nothing but rest.

"Please spar with me!"

Others went so far as to ask the returning knight order commander, hero and lord of the domain, for a bout. They were quite a varied crowd.

"You've returned, my lord!"

Even the castle lord had come out to welcome him with open arms.

They said this man's skills had bloomed late, shining only in old age, which was rare.

A junior knight is not some common thing.

Well, junior knights would be seen more often now than before, that much was true.

Every faction on the continent was beginning to reveal the strength it had kept hidden.

The world had been changing without anyone noticing, and at the center of that change stood the Iron Wall Knight.

What was remarkable here was that the castle lord's own growth bore the deep imprint of Enkrid's presence.

By simply existing, Enkrid stirred everyone around him, and those who did not give up or back away from that stirring all moved forward.

In a way, it was a remarkable mystery, something like magic.

It had become reality, and because everyone in front of him accepted it as natural, perhaps that was why this latest incident was being taken in stride as well.

There could be no greater mystery than this.

And because of this, every corner of the continent had reached the moment where it needed to show its true strength.

Put plainly, everything Enkrid had done served as a signal flare, announcing that the time had come for all who had endured by keeping the knight order's power hidden to finally reveal it and fight.

A new world.

Watching the balance of the continent shift, Abnaier felt something like that. Wind swept through and tossed his hair.

From Azpen to Naurillia.

From prisoner to now.

The wind of change was blowing.

A moment where the future could be glimpsed. A future where nothing could be fixed in place.

Abnaier spent a moment imagining various things. Then he returned to the present and looked ahead.

He saw the old castle lord moving with fierce energy, demanding a spar.

A castle lord ought to have worries weighing on him.

Yet he did not seem to care at all about having antagonized the Holy Order.

Not every person in the city was like this, but outwardly, they all looked the same.

None of them showed the slightest doubt about what Enkrid had done.

There could only be one reason.

Everything he had shown them until now was proof enough of who he was.

"Ah."

Abnaier had understood it with his head before, but it was only now that he accepted it in his heart.

It had not been a loss of force alone.

He already knew that. But seeing it with his own eyes and experiencing it directly drove it home, carved it deep.

I lost.

He had lost, but that defeat brought no despair or hopelessness. That was where Abnaier stood now.

His heart was beating fast, and he found himself looking forward to tomorrow.

* * *

"What are you saying?"

The moment Enkrid returned, the first thing he told Rem, Ragna, and the others was what Audin had said. Something like this needed to be passed along quickly.

"Audin said when he gets back, he'll give everyone a good beating."

Enkrid repeated what he had said a moment ago, trimmed down.

"Who's going to beat who? That bear cub youngest is going to beat me?"

"Say that word, youngest, one more time, and he just might."

Enkrid said it, and Rem picked up his axe with a short laugh.

Who beating whom, exactly.

Even if someone gave him close-range distance to work with, you could not guess his winning odds at even half. At a level like Rem's, fighting at whatever distance you chose was basic. Having surpassed Master and risen above even that was no joke.

Those who had reached this level did not easily give ground to let others fight at their preferred range.

So the bear cub youngest called Audin had no real chance. He was just a bear tough enough to make hitting him feel bad.

"What an absurd thing to say."

Rem said it again. He had sparred with Audin enough times to know his limits clearly.

"In my eyes, that bear-like man is a step above the two of you."

Sinar offered from the side. A fight could not truly be known until it was fought. Still, there were things you could see.

Her measure was the density and depth of divine power he carried in place of Will. Of course, even that could not tell you who would win when lives were on the line. But in a spar? When you could not swing the axe with full intent to kill?

At the elf's words, Rem's eyebrow twitched. The expression of a man who had just heard something he thoroughly disliked.

Would that elf lie? The odds were low. And Enkrid was not the type to say something like this as a joke.

"Really?"

Rem asked once more.

"Really."

Enkrid nodded without a word.

Rem felt it in his gut, this was the truth.

Enkrid was someone who took matters of swordsmanship and martial skill extremely seriously.

He was not the type to lie about something like this.

Beside him, Ragna opened his eyes slightly wider than usual and asked.

"Who?"

"Audin."

Enkrid answered plainly.

"Who?"

Ragna repeated the same words in the same tone.

"He said he'd be here within a few months at the latest."

Enkrid said it calmly. He knew only those who were going to listen would listen. And he also knew that what he had noticed, these people would not have missed either.

Everyone had known Audin was hiding something.

Even Fell and Ropord had known.

They had all picked up on it.

And on top of that, they all knew Audin would die before revealing what he had. That much had become clear through the countless spars they had forced on him under that pretense.

And yet that man had broken through his own shell?

Ropord, Fell, and Ruagarne did not change at Enkrid's words.

Jaxon was the same. He and Audin could not exactly be called close, but they could not be called on bad terms either.

The two of them, knowingly or not, had always respected each other's space.

But Rem and Ragna were different.

Those two had cheerfully teased and tormented Audin. For a while they had even stuck him with the role of youngest.

Only recently had the rumor spread of Ragna as the madman youngest, but before that, they had pressed Audin hard under the title of bear cub youngest and treated him roughly. At least on the surface.

Rem stood up, axe in hand. Lately he had been playing with his new toy, his own unit members, and had gotten a little lazy with his own training.

He had been. Now there would be no room for that.

"Don't look for me for a while."

Fortunately, timing was on his side. Recently, strange Demon Creature tracks had been found deep in the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range, something resembling an amorphous Evil Spirit.

He thought he might be able to convert it somehow through Sorcery.

He did not know the method yet. That was the problem to work out from here. But it had become urgent.

Originally he had planned to work it out very slowly, but that was no longer possible.

In the west, they had a saying for a case like this: trying to soak up sunlight just as the sun goes down.

It meant something similar to having fire fall on the back of your foot, caught off guard with no time left.

Shortened into a single word, like the saying for dark morning, they called it chasing the sunset.

Anyway, the point was it had become urgent.

"Tell Big Eyes that our unit is on leave for a while!"

Even in the cold that had set in, he would normally avoid going out unless necessary, but he showed his resolve by fetching a warming stone and insulated leather from inside the barracks and wrapping himself in them as he gathered his things.

Enkrid watched and nodded, then asked.

"Spar later?"

"See you in a few days."

Going into the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range alone would have sounded insane from anyone else, but this was Rem.

"If you die, I'll bury you well."

Enkrid raised a hand and said it, and Rem laughed and answered.

"Spending time with those religious types has taught you blessings? Why not say a full prayer while you're at it?"

"I'll do that too if you need it."

"Ah, get lost already, can't you see I'm busy?"

That was rich, coming from someone who had been sitting inside oiling his axe and warming himself by the fire right up until Enkrid arrived.

Ragna quietly took hold of his sword, stood, found a spot in the corner of the training ground, and began to swing.

Whip. Whoosh. Hum.

Each swing made a different sound.

Watching the two of them, Enkrid felt motivation welling up inside him as well.

He wanted to try what he had realized on the way back.

As always, he returned and slipped right back into daily life.

Swinging the sword, training, and hardening the body. That daily life.

"Every time you go out, you seem to bring back a girl. Collecting them? Could it be that face of yours?"

At some point, Esther, who had shifted into human form, came over and spoke to him.

"The grief of a man with no admirers is bubbling up. It's not the face. She came because she needed a place to stay."

Enkrid answered quietly in words Esther probably would not understand.

He thought he had forgotten it, but Seiki's words had settled deep in his chest.

That same Seiki had arrived at Border Guard and adapted almost immediately. Now she was following Sinar around.

She had only mentioned once that she wanted to train together sometime, but she seemed genuinely excited at the sight of mountains, open fields, and unfamiliar terrain.

Were all Highlanders like Seiki? Was discovering new terrain something they enjoyed observing and exploring?

Was she something special, or were all Highlanders like this?

The words Seiki had spoken on the way to the city came back to him.

"I want to spend my whole life in the mountains. It's not that I dislike being around people, I just like living that way. Hunting, eating good food, counting stars sometimes, letting moonlight fall on me, drinking. That kind of life."

It was a life she had learned from her grandfather. She wanted to repeat those mornings and evenings every day until she grew old and died.

Could you attach some great meaning to a life like that? Probably not. But that she truly wanted such a life was something he felt keenly.

Should something modest be looked down on for being modest? No, it should not.

Did every dream have to change the world?

That too was a no.

Did every dream have to come with obstacles hard to overcome?

Of course not.

Did every dream have to be the kind that transformed a person's life?

That too was no.

"I know my wishes might change someday. My grandfather always said I had too little experience and knew too little. He'd say that wanting to die as mountain folk even if I wasn't born a Highlander, that could just come from being young and not knowing enough. But if my thinking changes, isn't that something to work out when it happens? Anyway, right now, this is how I want to live. Exactly as I said."

These were the words of a child who loved the moon and stars, mountains and stones, waterfalls and streams, the freshness of spring, the sun and heat of summer, the cool richness of autumn, and the cold of winter with its pure white snowflakes falling from the sky.

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