WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 615: A Light Heart Makes for a Light Will

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"Then what do you get out of this?"

Enkrid turned the question back on him.

"The next Holy Knight Commander."

A clear enough gain. Desire was plain in the man's eyes. Someone like that would naturally end up in a place like this.

Not that everyone inside the Grey Holy Army was like him.

Azratic was already an exception, having unleashed white lightning.

There were also martyrs in the ranks who had convinced themselves that a false belief was genuine faith.

What Muel had started was plainly idiotic. A new god? What kind of apostate reasoning was that, straight out of the mouth of a ghoul's son.

So any ordinary believer would say:

"The Gray God? You want to become a corrupt apostate? That sounds like you want to make friends with Cultists. Am I strange for hearing it that way?"

And yet the people who had gathered at Muel's words were not all the same. They should have been, but they were not.

Even inside a church, even among people who worshipped a god and lived within the bounds of a religious order, this was still a place where people lived, and people shaped each other, leaned on each other.

Some had been swept along by the mood. Some had simply followed those around them.

There were also those who had spent their whole lives training their minds or hardening their bodies and knew little of the world outside.

Not knowing the world made it easy to be deceived.

And some among them had stepped forward simply because they believed it was the right thing to do.

Not worshipping the Gray God, but taking Muel at his word when he said that even what was happening now was the deity revealing itself in a different form.

That was how Muel deceived people with lies.

Was that wrong? Then who would punish him? Had the bishops of earlier generations been any different? Had every past Pope been spotless?

They had not, and still people had followed those men.

Even Prophet Overdier, who had risen to prominence recently, had in his youth served a Pope said to be the most rotten-smelling man in the world.

Of course, the man standing before Enkrid right now was acting purely out of self-interest. That much was clear from everything he said.

"Sir Azratic and every Holy Knight present have already been surpassed. I am the strongest here."

He was arrogant, too. He had not even given his name. The smile on his face seemed to guarantee his own victory.

He liked to talk. He had been running his mouth for a while now, but that was finally over.

He lowered the halberd. Bearing the full weight of a heavy weapon one-handed was proof enough he was no lightweight.

The spear tip jutting above the axe blade swung to point at Enkrid's chest. That alone pressed an invisible weight onto the shoulders, but Enkrid shook it off easily.

The first Will he had learned was Refusal. After that, through countless fights with Rem, he had naturally absorbed some of the traits of Rem's Sorcery.

Will was a formless, invisible force. Training to shape it visually and cut it away had proven useful here, too.

The opponent's Will moved like a chain trying to coil around him, and Enkrid sliced through it with a blade of the mind.

A brief, silent exchange, attack and defense without hands or feet, if you wanted to call it that.

A trick only those who had awakened Will and could use it freely would ever see.

The meaning behind lowering the halberd was plain: the man was saying he was the best fighter in the room. And that was true. He had defeated Azratic, and every Holy Knight present acknowledged it.

From Enkrid's perspective, this was an unexpectedly strong opponent.

Which was exactly why he felt pleased.

"I tend to have decent luck."

Enkrid answered honestly. He meant it.

"Idiot."

The Holy Knight curled the corner of his mouth and laughed, and before the word had even finished leaving his lips he closed the distance and flew forward. For someone wielding a heavy weapon, his footwork was remarkably fast, but it could not count as a surprise attack.

The movement was obvious.

Enkrid swung the true silver sword Aetri had given him. The blade flew at a diagonal.

Clang!

The edge struck the halberd shaft just below the head. It did not snap. Instead, Enkrid felt the rebound shudder through his grip.

An Inscribed Weapon, no question. The hardness was different. But the Will loaded into it felt strangely hollow.

Enkrid was interested in this strong opponent, but that did not mean he had to treat this as a life-or-death struggle.

As he knocked the halberd back, he split his Will and fed force into the blow. If he could pour Will out all at once in a single explosion, parceling it out was even simpler. It had taken training and persistent effort to get there, but right now it was something he could do.

He added speed to the true silver sword. Then his feet moved, and he showed what he had learned and practiced. He wove in the mercenary sword style from Vallen midway through.

"A cheap trick?"

The opponent had fallen for Feigned Breath, and the vein in his forehead jumped.

Enkrid had gulped for air and acted exhausted, and the man had immediately lunged in to seize the opening.

That was enough to throw the flow of divine power running through the opponent's body slightly out of rhythm.

The man was not what you would call seasoned. His technique with divine power was excellent. But that was all.

He fell short of Rem, fell short of Ragna, and comparing him to Aoara felt almost insulting.

Even against the knight from the Azpen campaign, the current opponent seemed lighter.

Honestly, if he had met this man before the Walking Fire encounter, he could not have sworn he would win easily. But that was not how it felt now.

He didn't think he would have lost even then.

"Block this!"

The opponent unleashed his specialty. A powerful blow wrenched from the full twist of his body and brought straight down. It looked like a hidden technique he had kept in reserve.

Most Holy Knights preferred sustained fighting over a single overwhelming strike. This man broke that convention.

The axe blade mounted on the halberd swept in from behind the man's back, outside Enkrid's line of perception, carving a wide arc before crashing down.

The sensation was like a bolt of lightning falling.

And Enkrid had already predicted that bolt dropping from outside his perception before the shout ever came.

Because the man's body had already told him he was committing everything to one decisive blow.

The step, the contraction of muscle, the tension in the grip, the angle of the arm, the position of the weapon, all of it fell within the range of his insight and let him read a split second into the future.

Focus Point activated. Thought accelerated.

Inside that fractured sliver of time, Enkrid knew exactly what he needed to do.

Will is a formless force. It does not have to be bound by speed.

He already knew how to pour Will out all at once, so he truly could.

Before he had understood it, it had been difficult. Now it was as simple as knowing that if you tip a cup all the way instead of tilting it slowly, you can empty it in one go.

Zing.

The sword Aetri had forged sang. The resonance traveled through his hand and into his whole body.

It was not an Inscribed Weapon, yet the blade seemed to show its own will.

Cut, it seemed to say. We will not lose to something like that.

Left foot forward. Bend the knee, then extend it. No evasion.

The man was acting out of self-interest rather than conviction, but that did not mean Enkrid dismissed his skill. What was clearly different, though, was the weight loaded into the weapon.

Looking at them from the outside, the halberd was several times heavier. But the heavier of the two was the true silver sword Enkrid swung.

The movement looked light and quick, yet the weight inside it was something else entirely.

Bang! Crack!

The rising blade split the axe head of the falling halberd. In a flash of instinct, Enkrid stepped forward and used Aoara's flowing sword.

A silver flash split through the axe head and carried onward, striking through the top of the opponent's skull.

The stroke was stretched long by the forward step, and the reach extended beyond the range of the halberd strike.

The result: the man's head cracked open. The corners of his eyes twitched. Blood and gray matter ran down his forehead and temple.

Beyond the head sliced at an angle, things that should not be visible became visible.

He gathered the last of his breath and spoke.

"What is this?"

Without blinking once, he looked directly at his own condition. He was dying. The instinct forged through a lifetime of knightly training told him so. That was why the words came out.

"I trained my whole life. Is it so wrong to want something in return?"

At the end, bitterness rose in him.

Living like a monk does not necessarily make a person pure. And becoming a knight does not mean everyone carries a high and noble purpose.

Becoming a knight was, at its core, a matter of talent and effort and luck combined.

But if the heart is light, of course the Will is light too.

That was what Enkrid thought.

They were both knights, but the difference in the weight of their Will was plain.

The body leaned forward and fell, as light as its Will had been. For a fight against a knight, it had been a little easy. That was what Enkrid thought.

* * *

Rem thought Enkrid had a real talent for finding the right opponents for himself. He also thought every single person around him was completely out of their minds.

What was there to be happy about, fighting with a grin like that.

"You crazy axe-swinger. Why are you smiling?"

His thoughts had drifted for a moment and the opponent beneath his feet spoke up.

"Was I smiling?"

Rem asked.

"Crazy bastard."

Those were the man's last words. He had held on even while his organs spilled out.

He had even been using gray sacred light to heal himself.

Divine power was, by nature, a force suited for endurance. Rem's opponent had done exactly that. He had apparently inherited the name of one of the Apostles of Abundance.

His own nickname had supposedly been "the one who won't die no matter how many times you kill him."

He had fought by covering himself in Sacred Light Armor, wearing down the enemy, and using sacred light to heal the small wounds that accumulated in the meantime.

"Oh, thanks for the compliment."

Rem picked up his axe. Calling on divine descent after such a long time had left his body sore.

The Holy Knight who had kept enduring and enduring could not withstand Rem's axe coming down all at once.

Looking around, the overall shape of the battle had already been decided, himself included. The fights against the knights had ended in overwhelming fashion.

In the middle of it all, Rem had also caught a glimpse of Audin fighting.

Bastard.

Becoming a glowing rock, which was what Rem called divine power, certainly made him a troublesome opponent.

Not that Rem thought he would lose.

The sun overhead had begun to tilt.

"What in the..."

Muel was too stunned to finish the thought.

"What do we do?"

His lieutenant, who also served as his disciple, asked.

The man's divine power was mediocre, but he had always moved like Muel's own tongue in his mouth. Quick to read a situation, that was why Muel kept him around. But now he was too flustered to even check Muel's mood before speaking.

Muel's eyes found the woman standing before the palisade.

A witch in nothing but a black robe despite the cold.

He had his own expertise in magic, but what that woman had done was something he would not even dare to attempt.

This was why Muel had not carelessly tried to assist his subordinate priests' spells.

The terror unleashed by the man with the greatsword had frozen the entire unit in place, and the Holy Knights he had trusted were falling one by one.

The Madman Knights' reputation had spread across the continent, but their actual capabilities had never been fully disclosed.

Which meant you could only learn what they were capable of by facing them directly. Muel understood that now.

Why is a force like this wandering around out there?

His head was a mess. He could not think straight.

"Apostle!"

The disciple called out to him again. He had been told to say Pope, but the old title came out instead.

"Full advance."

Muel muttered.

"Advance, advance!"

The mutter grew louder. He decided to add a divine incantation on top of it.

It was a spell he had prepared just in case.

Everyone who had ever fought the Holy State said the same thing: the most terrifying aspect of a holy army was the fanaticism of soldiers who kept charging even with arms and legs cut off.

It was an army of berserkers that felt no fear. A madness spell that made believers see the enemy as demons. Once cast, it turned ordinary soldiers into martyrs willing to die for their god.

"Lord, I call upon your power. I call upon your power."

Muel had begun to chant with desperation when it happened.

Two groups were approaching from different directions, closing in slowly. They had been coming from a distance, so Jaxon and Sinar and the others had already noticed them some time ago.

Enkrid, having finished his fight, knew as well. Some of the soldiers had also noticed.

Muel and those at the center became aware of the two armies somewhat later.

Both were army-scale forces. Banners were visible. One bore the symbol of the Holy State: a winged spear, the battle standard flown when the holy army marched to war with the intent to annihilate the enemy.

The Grey Holy Army had been carrying a hastily made banner depicting a gray spear. Now the original had shown up.

The other was a black flag with a diagonal slash across it.

The unnamed holy warrior from Noah's monastery had said that even winning would leave nothing gained, that even in victory they could be branded as people bewitched by demons.

Enkrid had said he did not care about that, but he could not help being on guard against an army that might become an enemy at any moment.

Muel saw the two groups approaching as well. He stopped his incantation.

Someone rushed forward from each group at the same time. The one from the Holy State was a familiar face.

The other was a face the unnamed holy warrior recognized.

"Why is the commander here?"

He muttered in surprise.

The slashed banner belonged to the Cult Extermination Priest Corps.

Which meant they were effectively the unnamed holy warrior's comrades. They might have come to punish someone who had betrayed their duty.

"Stand down!"

The one who stepped out from the Cult Extermination Priest Corps shouted as he ran, repeating it again and again.

"A little late!"

"Commander!"

The unnamed holy warrior went to meet him.

The moment Enkrid laid eyes on him, he felt a weight that bore no comparison to the opponent he had just faced.

A man whose forehead and cheeks were covered in scars.

The one from the Holy State had reached the battlefield as well.

Who was the familiar face? Prophet Overdier.

A small knight order on one side, the two armies facing it. The representatives of each group had come forward and stopped.

Enkrid had already said he did not care whether they called him demon-touched or anything else. If these people came at him here, he would face them. That had been his intention from the start, and it had not changed.

Everyone watched everyone else.

Overdier opened his mouth first.

"You absolute fools."

His tone was filled with fury.

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