WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 616: Abbot Noah

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At Overdier's words, Noah bolted forward.

"You can't do this! The responsibility is entirely mine. You cannot hold them accountable for any of it. I was the one who asked for help, and they came out without knowing a thing!"

His mind was too urgent to bother checking whether any of it made sense. The words just spilled out.

Even if the tide had turned in their favor, a single arrow could still kill a man, and Noah seemed utterly fearless.

Enkrid angled his body to intercept any arrow that might come and let the thought drift through him.

'Can I really claim I came out knowing nothing, given how far out front I was?'

Noah was pointing at him and saying he had stepped in without knowing anything, but no one present was likely to take that at face value.

Noah must have twisted an ankle somewhere along the way. He limped forward with both arms spread wide and planted himself between Enkrid and the two men facing him, Overdier and the commander of the Cult Extermination Priest Corps.

Enkrid looked at the two of them, arms hanging loose, swords still in hand.

If he fought both at once right now, would he lose? Hard to say. If he had to carry it alone, maybe. But he was not alone here, so their side seemed unlikely to come up short.

"I still have a spring breeze I haven't had the chance to show."

"I've only been watching, so I still have plenty left."

Behind him, Sinar and Ruagarne spoke in turn.

He was not sure what spring breeze meant, but it sounded like the elf was also saying she had energy to spare.

"Even if I worshipped a demon, that is my problem alone!"

Noah shouted. The veins stood out on his neck. The words spread through the gathered crowd, a cry that might well be useless, aimed at people who had no reason to listen.

In this world, how many would stop to hear the voice of someone without power?

But what if that voice was not alone?

Someone stepped forward. Stood at Noah's side. Then another, and another.

A monk who had been watching Noah shout. A priest from the monastery. Among them were priests who could not use divine power, and martial monks who had changed their minds after the incident with Seiki.

One man, his scalp shaved smooth from crown to forehead, stepped up beside Noah. His legs were shaking. It would have been strange if he were not afraid.

They gathered one by one until a cluster of more than ten people had formed behind Noah, the ones who had helped him run the monastery. A few of them pushed back young monks who had tried to step forward.

The middle-aged woman who had done the pushing looked over the remaining young ones.

If dying here meant she could keep them alive, was that not something to be honored?

Then she would become a martyr.

Even if everyone cursed them all as demon worshippers, if that was the price of saving the children, she could bear it. She stepped forward and spoke.

"How could this fall to one person alone? If there is blame, it belongs to all of us."

"Not the children, and not those people. What was done, we did."

"Abbot Noah, why are you standing alone?"

They spoke. One voice became many, and many gave it weight. That is how words gain force, people stand beside them.

What does a king need to exist as a king?

People who recognize him as king, and who stand at his side.

Noah had those people now, lending their weight to his words.

"Why are you stepping out like this."

Noah looked at them and felt no great rush of emotion. He seemed mildly surprised, drew one breath, and only then did the urgency ease slightly from his face. He spoke again.

His tone was entirely different from the frantic rush of moments before. Calm, settled.

The way he spoke, his tone, his bearing, it had a quality that drew people's attention in a way unlike Crang, yet no less powerful.

"I cannot wield divine power. The Lord did not see fit to grant me that. So I cannot stop you by force."

Noah continued.

"I can only pray. The responsibility is mine."

Everyone listened. His voice was soft, yet it lodged itself in the ear without effort.

"This is not a matter that should reach the hero from Border Guard, or those children who are still young. Is that not so?"

They say divine power is light.

But failing to radiate that light did not mean one could not be a priest.

Noah was a priest, and he was someone who knew how to hold a line.

Even if these were the last words he would ever speak alive, if there was no reason to run, he was not the kind of man who ran.

He was someone who knew how to shield others with the conviction he had built inside himself.

None of these people had done anything. They were not demon worshippers. Enkrid knew that.

So if those two now standing against them, Overdier included, insisted on spouting that nonsense, Enkrid knew what his part would be.

He thought it through.

Becoming an enemy of the Holy State? He would bear it.

Becoming an enemy of the Cult Extermination Priest Corps, that sect of fanatics and fighters?

He would bear that too.

If the entire continent pointed its fingers at him? That as well.

Praise and cheering were pleasant things, but he did not live solely for them, and he would not throw himself away for them.

That was the pride and conviction of someone who lived only in the present, always looking toward tomorrow.

A cold silence hung in the air. The unnamed holy warrior, who had joined them earlier, stepped forward. He felt that he too needed to do something to settle this.

"Did you come here because the monastery was worshipping demons?"

Demon worship was the hallmark of the Cult.

Was that not what the name Cursed Ground Holy Sect implied? The Cult Extermination Priest Corps existed for exactly what its name said, to exterminate the Cult. So perhaps they had come to destroy this monastery.

"Or did you come to punish me for deserting?"

The holy warrior was trying to give them a reason. Punish me instead. Take one life and spare everyone from a fight that did not need to happen. That was the quiet offer behind the words.

The swordswoman was a knight. She led the priest corps, one arm of the Holy State's power.

It was hard to read any expression through all those scars.

What showed through was only a deep, settled patience, the kind carved into someone who had endured years of hardship.

And Overdier, who had been shouting fool not long ago, chewed over Noah's words for a moment before stepping forward. A prophet who knew how to seize an opening recognized this as one.

A chance to decide where he stood.

"If that is why you came, then I suppose I know where I belong."

Overdier stepped across and came to stand beside Enkrid, shifting the direction of his gaze.

That made it clear whose side he was on.

"The fool I mentioned was that Apostle of Abundance over there."

At those words, Audin smiled pleasantly. He had already finished beating Azratic into near ruin.

Azratic had lost one arm and one ankle.

No matter what kind of divine power a person carried, no one could regrow a severed arm. That was not possible without being a Frog. Regeneration was out of the question.

The severed arm was gone for good. The ankle was in a similar state.

It had not been cut, but Audin had crushed and shattered it with divine power. There was no coming back from that. No amount of divine power poured in would fix it. He would limp for the rest of his life.

It had not been intentional. The opponent simply was not someone to be handled carelessly.

The scarred swordswoman looked steadily at Enkrid without a word. She did not seem to have properly heard her subordinate's words. Blue eyes that held light met dull dark brown ones.

A short silence followed. The swordswoman spoke.

"There is no one here foolish enough to brand an ordinary monastery as a demon's servant."

Courteous.

Then:

"I was late to understand that you were right. Brother."

The Cult Extermination Priest Corps was a strange organization by its very nature.

They answered to the Pope, but if necessary, the commander could declare war at their own discretion. Of course, they lived and breathed solely to exterminate the Cult.

It was what they had been built for from the very start.

Those who had lost family to the Cult. Those who had lost a lover to the Cult. Those who had lost everything they had ever had.

One word and they would fight knowing they might die. Avengers and martyrs, gathered together. Their battles had always been desperate, brutal, and merciless.

This was the head of that organization, yet she bowed her head far too easily.

"If I had watched this monastery burn, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life."

These words were spoken while looking at a sibling in faith.

"Did you not come to punish me for my wrongs?"

"I came to thank you, brother, you who walked the right path alone, for the lesson."

The unnamed holy warrior stared at the swordswoman in silence for a moment. So she had come to save the monastery as well.

"Come back when this is over."

"If you will have me."

The full details were not known, but listening was enough to understand. The unnamed holy warrior had not come with permission.

It had been half a forced intrusion, yet the swordswoman chose reflection over punishment.

Quite a remarkable person. Enkrid watched her thinking that, and just then the swordswoman happened to look at him as well.

"I owe you my thanks as well. Enkrid of Border Guard. If not for you, I believe I would have been too late."

"You were not too late because you kept moving even after falling behind. That is not being late, as I see it."

"Is that so?"

"That is how I see it."

"Will you let us clean up the filth we made?"

"By all means."

Enkrid sheathed his sword and stepped aside. The blade Aetri had given him showed not a mark, no damage to the edge at all.

His decision was the Madman Knights' decision entire.

"So we're just spectators now?"

Rem came over, and Ragna, who had made himself a wall of terror earlier, trudged back as well.

"Did you see it? My wall?"

First words out of his mouth, directed at Enkrid, as though anyone else's opinion did not matter.

"Yeah. Sloppy."

Rem was the one who answered.

"I wasn't asking you. Lucky barbarian."

"Who got lucky? Say that again?"

The two of them bickered, but it was not serious enough to bother stopping.

"Jaxon."

That could wait. Calling Jaxon seemed more pressing.

Jaxon had slipped from the spot where Overdier had been standing to a position behind Enkrid, and no one was quite sure when.

If things had gone wrong, he had been ready to cut one of the two men's throats. Overdier had looked like the easier target, so Jaxon had kept him within striking range.

Everyone here was long past accustomed to handling Will, so they could read Jaxon's intent to some degree. Which made it all the more startling.

No one had noticed his presence until Enkrid called for him.

"Guess I'll have to show that spring breeze another time."

Sinar said it, and then Ropord, Fell, and Teresa came back dripping blood. Most of it was the enemy's.

"Two under Ropord's command, mission complete."

Ropord reported.

"Make that two pieces of chaff under Fell."

Fell shot back.

"You both still have a senior who outranks you standing right here."

Teresa added her piece.

From the way they traded words, none of them seemed badly hurt.

Esther had returned to panther form at some point.

"Not sure why it feels like I'm being left out of everything."

Overdier said it while watching the situation unfold, and Audin smiled pleasantly and answered.

"Sharp eyes for an old one, brother. Why not get to work?"

"Right, that is what I came for."

Overdier had already decided, when he first saw Enkrid, that if he could not bring that man to his side, he would simply stand at his side instead. So there was no hesitation now.

Still, with or without Enkrid, he would have protected the monastery.

Coming here and seeing it with his own eyes confirmed that. There were more than enough reasons. He had to admit he was a little surprised.

Overdier was a man who calculated, who weighed every angle. He had run numbers that included sacrificing the monastery if necessary. But now...'I nearly would have regretted it.'

He had already taken the measure of Enkrid's character. Nothing new to be surprised about there. He looked at someone else instead, and his eyes sharpened with interest.

A priest who could not channel divine power stood there unsteady, breathing out in relief.

Noah, they had said. Overdier had thought that the people who had gathered at Noah's side were not, by nature, the kind who would step forward with that sort of courage.

He had come to know of Noah's monastery through Seiki, and had done his own thorough investigation afterward.

His investigation had gone as far as digging into the past of every person inside these walls.

Through that, he could predict their behavior to a reasonable degree.

An ability befitting the title of Prophet. Investigate, understand, anticipate.

By his estimation, the people at Noah's side should have read the room, held back, and withdrawn. Yet they had not. They had stepped up. They had tried to protect. Who was responsible for that change? The knight with the iron wall, the ally from a foreign land?

No.

"Noah, was it?"

"Ah, Lord Overdier."

"Right. When this is done, let's talk."

"If he's threatening you, I'll stay close."

Enkrid cut in from behind.

"Do I look like the kind of person who makes threats?"

Overdier tilted his head.

"Were you not?"

Enkrid asked.

"What exactly do you take me for. Tsk."

Overdier smiled, clicked his tongue, and turned away. It was genuinely time to get to work now.

He had an apple tree he had tended with careful calculation, and there were rotten parts that needed cutting out.

It could not be cut perfectly clean. Not completely. But still, was that not enough?

'What comes next will take time.'

Muel had been watching it all unfold and realized how badly things had gone for him.

"You damned lot. Overdier, was this you? Did you arrange all of this deliberately?"

Overdier was a master of laying out the board. Muel knew that. That was where the question came from.

For once, Overdier felt genuinely wronged.

This was not a board he had set up. He had come to clean up the mess Muel had made.

That Enkrid of Border Guard would move on this, that he had not predicted. The knight with the iron wall was not someone easily anticipated to begin with.

"He will not be reasoned with. If he keeps resisting to the end, send them all to stand before God. Kneel and press your foreheads to the ground. Accept whatever punishment God hands down afterward. That is the last consideration I will offer."

Overdier was not gentle with enemies. Neither was the Cult Extermination Priest Corps.

"Kill anyone who fights back."

A sparse order, and that sparseness made it more threatening still. All the more so coming directly from the swordswoman in command.

If Overdier's title was Prophet, the swordswoman's was Berserker.

A rough title for someone commanding a Holy State priest corps, but she had earned it.

A fighter who warred with fury. Her priests were the same.

"Is the Cursed Ground truly right to disappear? Why does divine power exist? Should this continent remain divided, or should it become one? Why does the Empire not move?"

Muel's end was a torrent of unanswered questions. Where had the gray power come from? He had dug as deep as anyone, so he could hardly claim ignorance of its origins.

The gray light he unleashed was corrupted, and the source of that corruption was tied to the demon god said to dwell in the Cursed Ground.

That did not mean a demon had been directly involved. But the connection was there.

Enkrid did not bother picking at it any further.

This part was theirs to handle now.

Without Overdier and the swordswoman, protecting the whole of the monastery might well have been beyond him.

Looking at what Noah had been doing, the man seemed like someone who would die first in his rush to save everyone.

Well. Enkrid thought as much and simply watched the last of this noisy affair play out.

Muel could not complete his fanatic incantation. The priests who had come with Overdier would not allow it.

One by one they knelt, and those who refused to yield died. There was not much of a fight to speak of. The sun had begun to set without anyone noticing. Darkness followed.

The night that came was not cold. It was more like a velvet robe, wrapping everyone in quiet warmth.

"Lord."

Noah knelt to one side and prayed.

Enkrid had already seen it before Overdier even thought to look closely. Noah was not someone whose vessel would end with one monastery.

He had sensed that, and now it had come true in plain sight.

Overdier was not about to leave him alone.

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