WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 604: A New God

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Esther saw her own blue eyes reflected back at her.

Anyone else who had tried something like that would have lost more than just their eyes, but this man was different. She could tell just by looking at him. Exactly as he had said, there was no ulterior motive beyond warming her body back up.

Those eyes held nothing but sincerity.

And besides, she remembered asking him to hold her before she passed out.

"All right."

Esther spoke and took stock of her condition. The flow of magical power? No problems. What about the curse that had been settling cold into her bones? Using the borrowed spell recklessly had allowed the chill of Del Grecher, master of the frozen earth, to take root in her, but it was gone now, cleanly, as if it had never been. Warmth moved through her body.

"I'm better now."

She stepped out of bed, picked up the robe draped over the chair beside it, and pulled it around her shoulders.

Through the window, pale blue dawn light fell across her back. The motion of putting on the robe bared part of her skin.

Her white skin caught the light, and the soft rustle of the robe settling into place reached Enkrid's ears. The scent of her, which he had spent days breathing in while holding her close, grazed the tip of his nose.

It was the same fragrance as lying beneath the stars on a cool, pleasant night, drifting off to sleep in a gentle breeze.

If someone were to make a perfume from Esther's natural scent, the right name for it would be Night Sky.

She shivered briefly. She had said she was better, but leaving a warm embrace meant the chill found her immediately.

She glanced at Enkrid on the bed, shirt off. That warmth had been real.

In her dream, Esther had been lying in a field of flowers, wrapped in a comfortable warmth.

The warmth, the smell, all of it had been genuinely pleasant.

'Sunlight smell.'

The faint scent of sunlight, like cloth dried well in the sun, still lingered at the tip of her nose.

Looking at Enkrid watching her from the bed, Esther said, "Take care of those eyes."

"Sure."

A light joke. Thinking back on the dream brought up thoughts she did not want, so Esther shifted into her panther form.

The robe clung to her skin, then became fur. Her blue eyes stayed the same, but her body lowered and took the shape of a four-legged beast.

"Why?"

Enkrid asked. The panther tilted her head toward the door as if to say she was going first, then walked out.

Enkrid watched her go and shrugged. In the bed beside him, Ruagarne puffed out her cheeks and spoke. Puffed cheeks like that were her version of a smile. By now he could more or less read the difference in her expressions.

"She's embarrassed."

Ruagarne said it with her cheeks still puffed.

"Who?"

"Esther."

Esther the witch. The Black Flower. The woman who claimed she would rip out the eyes of anyone who stared at her body.

That Esther was embarrassed? Enkrid had not picked up on anything like that.

"Attractive people have no idea what effect they have on others. Tch. You're guilty, you know."

Ruagarne said it and kept puffing her cheeks. Whatever was funny seemed to be for her alone.

"What are you talking about."

"Just saying. It'll be interesting to see how things turn out. Don't worry about me, though. Frogs don't attach meaning to physical love. When I want offspring, I'll find a suitable male Frog."

"What exactly did I say that made you bring that up?"

"Just saying."

Ruagarne repeated herself. Enkrid stayed in the city one more day.

The Cultist gatherings had vanished without a trace, which was only natural, every time one was spotted, a certain Frog would go on a rampage.

With the criminal guilds gone, a few rough types had started making noise about collecting protection fees. The castellan moved on them without hesitation, rounding them up and having them flogged.

"Gah! Stop, stop! I'll work honestly!"

The screams of the beaten men echoed through the city like background music for a while.

Lord Lui's approach as castellan was straightforward.

He had his troops in order, and from here on out, anyone who refused to listen would be beaten into compliance.

It was not Enkrid's place to get involved.

'He'll handle it on his own.'

The matter had left his hands.

Inside the manor, there were some gems that the vampire and the administrator had stockpiled. The castellan had gathered all of it and brought it over. Enkrid saw the box of gems as he prepared to leave.

"Please accept this."

Receiving payment for a job was natural. He had taken on the request, so he expected to be paid.

Only, payment did not have to come in the form of gems and Krona.

Enkrid knew the castellan still had countless waves ahead to fight through. Getting past them would take a great deal of resources.

What sat in that box would have been a fee to him, but to the castellan and the city, it might be tomorrow's meal.

He could see that, so he could not take it. And he already considered himself paid.

"I've already been paid."

"My conscience won't settle unless you take this."

"Wouldn't it be better used to rebuild the city?"

Every word of it was right. The castellan had strained himself to put that box together. He had not even managed to arrange the contents neatly, just valuable things thrown in at random.

"I've already been paid."

Enkrid said it again. Just last night, Delma had come to find him.

"Thank you," she had said.

Enkrid thought the weight of those words was worth more than anything in that box.

Delma had not been the only one.

Everyone who knew what he had done had come to find him and said the same.

"Thank you. For saving my child."

So had the innkeeper, who had raised a child with no blood tie to him.

"Thank you! First ride on my boat once I build it!"

So had a simple man, one who was wise precisely because of that simplicity.

"Th, thank you."

So had one child's mother. And now the castellan bowed his head and said, "I am truly grateful, sir. If a day comes when you need my help, I will offer whatever small assistance I can. Even if it costs me my life."

No need to say it was genuine. You could just tell.

Even if that sincerity faded with time, it did not matter.

Or perhaps, with time, the castellan would only want to express that gratitude more firmly.

All of that was something only tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and the one after that could reveal.

After hearing their words, Enkrid walked out of the city. He left Cross Guard beneath uneasy glances and cool stares.

Not every gaze was friendly, but all of it left Enkrid feeling quite satisfied.

This city would still be here to meet tomorrow's sunrise.

That was what satisfied him. Truly.

* * *

He heard from Esther later that she had killed an Apostle.

It became the kind of thing that stirred up Cultists across the entire continent.

They began making their moves in a very particular way.

Neither Enkrid nor Krais had seen it coming.

* * *

"A revelation has come to me. This is the task God has given me."

Overdier finally stood before the Archbishop, the one who had betrayed God and used God for her own ends.

Two Holy Warriors from the Holy Knight Order guarding her, deeply brainwashed and willing to block his path to the end, had just been knocked down.

"Sir Overdier."

The Archbishop was a woman of around fifty. She wore an expression of deep sorrow. With the corners of her eyes drooping, she spoke as though in considerable distress.

"Why are you doing this? If you stand against the Order, what do you have left? Is all of this truly worth throwing away your honor as a Holy Knight?"

The Archbishop spoke of Overdier's honor, but looked at more closely, honor was not the only thing she was talking about.

"Is there truly nothing you wish to protect? Is that so?"

She repeated herself. What she said on the surface was this:

Is what you're doing right now worth throwing away a lifetime of honor? Can a rotten fruit simply be left alone? Can't you stand with those in power and just watch?

'Ah.'

No. Even if it amounted to nothing more than an old man's stubbornness, he could not stand by while the foundation he had built with his own hands rotted away beneath him.

He could not watch any longer.

"The revelation," he answered.

The Archbishop closed her eyes, his hand around her throat.

"A curse on all who betrayed me."

She smiled faintly even as she died. A thoroughly wicked woman. Her neck snapped with a crack and her tongue lolled out. He had given her no time to finish a spell. It was over immediately.

"Hah."

Overdier let out a breath of relief, having crossed one great mountain.

It was an old, worn manor. The kind of place that deserved to be called a ruin.

From here, the Archbishop had tormented a great many people with spells that bordered on sorcery.

She had the ability to control from a distance anyone who had spent a certain amount of time with her.

She had named the ability herself: "Penance." Overdier called it "Torture."

It made people flog themselves with a whip against their own will.

It kept them from sleeping.

It kept them from eating.

The ability forcibly imposed what practitioners voluntarily endured as training. Something like that existing among pure divine spells? Impossible. This was a kind of curse, combined with western sorcery.

The problem was that one of the people the Archbishop was managing was Overdier's wife.

When she had spoken of honor, the veiled threat behind her words had been exactly this.

The moment he had decided to dig into the rot inside the Order, he had known there was a threat aimed at his wife, Lona.

It was a fatal vulnerability.

So he had needed someone else. Someone who could move in his place.

Someone who could handle things while drawing the Archbishop's attention elsewhere.

"Is it over now?"

that person asked. The frame fit the nickname "bear beastfolk" well. The divine nature within him surpassed even Overdier's own. He said it plainly: there was no talent in the Order that could match his.

"Not over. Just beginning."

"My part is finished, at least."

"That it is. But there'll be other work now."

"Any doubts?"

Audin asked directly. Sharp, underneath that appearance. Overdier read the intent behind the question and replied.

"You mean that things went too smoothly, following the revelation?"

He had felt the same. Everything had fallen into place too easily.

The Archbishop had revealed herself without much trouble, and the Holy Warriors' guard had been careless. Even accounting for Audin's skill, it had been too easy.

"Yes. That's what I mean, old brother who loves to brag about his wife."

All the talk of his wife's virtues during their time together had earned Overdier that nickname quickly. He took it as a compliment. He answered only the part that mattered, whether things had gone too smoothly.

"It had to be done. Even if someone intended for it to go this way, it was not something I could have avoided."

Leave it alone and his identity would be exposed. Then his wife would die at the end of a long penance. He could not stop.

Even if he had lost his wife, it would still have had to be done.

This was about protecting the foundation he had built.

That said, losing his wife was something he found deeply unbearable. Which was why Audin's appearance in the middle of all this had been such a relief.

'May the Lord guide my way.'

While Overdier prayed silently, Audin nodded.

There had been hidden assistance partway through the job. He had gotten the sense that this help had not been offered out of goodwill, but there was nothing he could have done about it either way.

"I'll be heading back, then."

"I won't go far."

A short partnership, ended. Audin turned away, and his instincts proved right. Just before he returned to Border Guard, things broke loose.

* * *

"Who truly follows the word of God? Who is right? Is it the Holy Knight who murdered that Archbishop? If you do not know right from wrong, stay out of it. I will discipline them myself and set God's will straight!"

A faction of the god of abundance's priests, a faction of the war god's priests, a faction of the sky-kin god's priests, and part of the Holy Knight Order.

They declared a holy war.

"The monastery that betrayed the Order and exploited the Holy Maiden for private gain shall be the first to fall."

Forces rallying under the banner of holy war gathered. Behind them, the Cultists' machinations were woven in.

They were bold about it, starting a fight right where the Holy Knight Order was garrisoned.

Multiple Apostles of the Cult began fighting Holy Knights. As a result, the Holy Knight Order could not participate in the holy war.

This was not a moment to take sides. They had territories they were responsible for protecting.

Everything has something behind it, but the Cultists' goal was hard to read.

Still, thinking about it, sparking a holy war was itself a gain for them.

It meant the Holy State was tearing into its own flesh.

"We will erase these damned Cultists from this land."

The appearance of Apostles set both the Justice Priest Corps and the Cult Extermination Priest Corps in motion. But in the middle of that, a rumor spread that a Holy Knight within the priest corps had been killed. The story going around was that an Apostle of the Cursed Ground Holy Sect had done it.

With that, neither priest corps could offer any meaningful position on the holy war or step into it.

The Holy State was a nation with the Order at its core, with three cities as its territory, and all three fell into chaos.

In the middle of it all, Muel, one of the seven Apostles of the god of abundance, who had proclaimed a holy war and declared himself the next pope, finally marched on the monastery he had targeted.

That new sacred army spread indulgences, and word spread that there were two Holy Knights within the force.

At this rate, a new Order would actually be born with Muel at its head.

"We worship the Gray God."

They proclaimed their colorless light to be divine nature, without shame. Completely out of their minds.

They had created a god out of nothing and built a new religion around it.

Within the actual Order there had always been some tendency for those who emitted a grayish sacred light to cluster together, and that had now become a reality.

The fact that those people were also part of the Order's entrenched establishment was what made this blow up so badly.

"These bastards have all lost their minds."

Overdier could not stand by and watch either, so he organized a force and moved.

Noah, who led the monastery, chose to hold out inside the fortress-like monastery walls. Dying quietly here was not something he was willing to accept.

Muel marched toward Noah's monastery and gathered an army as he went. Numbers swelled by the day, and he dressed his forces up with the name Gray Sacred Army.

"I will use your burning flesh as the altar to offer to the Gray God."

He declared he would not accept the monastery's surrender either.

By this point it was already a different religion from anything having to do with the god of abundance, but now it was like a cart rolling downhill with speed building by the second.

Nobody could stop it.

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