WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 623: Realized Too Late

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No matter how generously you looked at him, Ragna was not cut out to lead a unit. That said, Krais was not the type to leave things alone.

"Let's attach ten men to him."

What they put together was something called the Ten-Blade Swordsmen, with Ragna as captain and Ropord as vice-captain.

Obvious as it was, most of the actual work fell to Ropord.

Ropord handled new recruit training on top of everything else, though that was later changed so that members from each unit took turns doing it.

The ten who were actually selected were all talented in their own right, but every single one of them had gone through a moment of despair after seeing Ragna and Ropord up close.

"So I'm not actually a genius," one of them said with a hollow look.

After that, they would get teased by Fell for a bit, then Ropord would clap them on the shoulder and they would naturally fall back into training. Not all of them could be given insignias, but every one of them had a fierce sense of belonging.

The Ten-Blade Swordsmen under Ragna in particular earned a nickname: the small knight order, an elite few. That kind of pride was not a bad thing, so it was left alone. There were occasional fights among them because of it, but nothing serious enough to cause real problems.

"Fighting? Lose and kill yourself."

Ragna told them that if they were going to fight, they had better win, and not a single unit member took that as a joke.

Ragna had actually meant it as one.

In truth, he believed that a healthy dose of defeat was essential for improving your skills.

He had never thought that way before, but watching Enkrid had taught him quite a few things.

"Come at me if you want to fight."

So he would occasionally spar with them. All ten swordsmen made Ragna their target. Their eyes naturally rose higher as a result, and the heat of training that had started with Enkrid became a force that sharpened their skills beyond recognition.

In the past, the Frontier Guard had been considered the finest unit in the Border Guard Standing Army, but that unit was currently operating as the peacekeeping force in Martai.

For a number of reasons, the Frontier Guard could no longer hold the same reputation it once had. Part of it was that the overall quality of Border Guard soldiers had risen, and along with that, the military forces of various continental factions had revealed their true capabilities, shifting the balance considerably.

So the changes in structure could fairly be read as a response to the countless armed factions now established across the continent.

The next thing Krais turned his hand to was Audin's divine infantry.

Audin became captain and Teresa vice-captain, and this was the unit Krais needed to worry about the least.

Whether from experience or natural ability, Audin smoothly led a hundred soldiers in line with the structure they had been given.

Ruagarne remained as Enkrid's closest personal guard, and Esther showed a talent for turning the twenty soldiers under her command into something close to mages.

After laying out that picture, Krais and Abnaier shifted the atmosphere of Border Guard one more time.

The restructuring had, in fact, been done precisely to build that atmosphere.

More accurately, they used the heat of training that Enkrid had ignited.

The goal was to let a culture of training and discipline take root.

"Are you going to just let this heat go to waste?"

It was a joint effort born from Abnaier saying it and Krais acting on it.

The two of them shaped an environment that would push the drive to improve in soldiers who had finished basic training.

First, they gave each unit special privileges and benefits so that pride in belonging would deepen.

Second, soldiers in these units received a different monthly wage from ordinary troops.

Some dropped out during the training process, of course, especially often from Rem's unit, but that was not a problem in itself.

The unit commander overseeing public order handled things with complete fairness.

That commander was currently Vengeance.

Thinking back on his history with Enkrid, it was a remarkable rise.

Enkrid had also publicly called Vengeance a comrade-in-arms, openly acknowledging his contributions.

That too had been a calculated move on Krais's part.

Krais had known that if anyone questioned Vengeance's authority, Enkrid would say exactly that.

It seemed like Enkrid had known what he was doing as well, but either way, good was good.

"I don't listen to anyone weaker than me. Learned that since I was a kid," someone said to Vengeance.

Enkrid cut off that person's ear.

Everyone agreed Enkrid was being generous for not taking the head along with it.

The words Enkrid spoke next were carved even deeper into the minds of everyone present.

"If I wanted someone who could only fight, I would've put Rem in charge. Is that what you want?"

Every citizen, mercenary, and soldier who had come to Border Guard had no desire to experience their skull being split clean down the middle by a single word.

That was simply what Rem was.

Everyone inside Border Guard knew it. Only outsiders passing through did not, and the man who had just lost his ear happened to be exactly that kind of outsider.

"Who cares!" he shouted, full of spite.

"Insane bastard."

"Just die."

"Die on your own if you're going to."

"Hey, throw him out and splash a bucket of water in front of the shop after."

The outsider watched even the restaurant owner turn away from him. He also ran into people who physically forced him out.

Not long after, the people who had subdued someone doing worse than a demon-summoning ritual shouted:

"Long live Vengeance!"

The peacekeeping unit under Vengeance was still part of the Border Guard Standing Army, so it was no weak outfit. Keeping order itself was not especially hard.

"Damn, I'm just everybody's punching bag," was all Rem said later when he heard the story, though Rem was not the type to let something like that bother him anyway.

Around that time, news came that the Cursed Ground had erupted once, but the Red Cloak Knights, aided by the Holy State's Cult-suppression priest corps, had contained it. It had been a rough fight, from what Eisia said. A comrade had lost an arm.

After that, the Cultists rose twice more, though no Apostle appeared either time.

One of the two uprisings was dealt with by three off-duty soldiers from the Border Guard Standing Army, at an estate in the south. The publicly known story was that they had caught a whiff of something rotten and taken care of it, but looking at it from the inside, an intelligence unit under Jaxon had been involved.

The last unit Krais had organized was a mercenary outfit unknown to the outside world, one built around covert operations, assassination, and intelligence-gathering.

Jaxon led it.

The other uprising was resolved by the kingdom's peacekeeping force. Apparently someone had tried to perform a demon-summoning ritual in the capital.

It seemed they had targeted a gap in internal security caused by the construction of outposts outside the capital and the sweeping removal of Demon Creatures and bandits, but Andrew Gardner, recently appointed as the kingdom's chief of peace enforcement, had caught them.

Enkrid received news of all this through letters.

Setting aside small matters like those, Enkrid was not doing anything in particular. He trained, he drilled, he occasionally browsed the market, and he visited Aetri to share stories from various experiences.

"Please let me see your sword."

By now it was only natural for Aetri to take a look at it.

He disassembled the grip, heated the blade in a forge, hammered it, applied something like a treatment, and re-oiled it.

"Even so, you will need to maintain it frequently on your own. You must not skip the oiling with true silver. The metal itself is rather sensitive, and the edge will lose its strength quickly if neglected."

"I'll be careful."

Aetri then remarked that the shortsword he had made seemed to be going unused, took it back, and replaced it with the Guard Sword, a broad-bladed weapon.

A pattern similar to an insignia was etched into the wide blade, and however you looked at it, there was something magical about it.

"Putting real magic into it was still beyond my ability. Instead, Esther was kind enough to lend a hand."

Aetri showed Enkrid the blade, slid it into a black leather scabbard, then spun the grip around and held it out.

"Esther?"

Their Black Panther sorceress always seemed to move with cool self-possession, yet there was nowhere her reach did not extend.

That was clear enough from the sight of castellan Graham sending gifts in thanks because she had placed protective wards on the city walls.

"Yes, this was made with her help."

The Guard Sword Aetri had gifted him would, according to him, automatically block one attack if you gripped the handle and tossed it lightly into the air.

It crossed Enkrid's mind that a shield might have been more practical, but Aetri thought differently.

"There is a story about a certain knight of the past who took something called the Luck Blade as his Inscribed Weapon. The Luck Blade would save its owner's life once, against attacks even the owner had not foreseen. I drew inspiration from that and swung my hammer."

He did not just refine technique, he studied history. Aetri was giving his best in every direction.

So of course there was a reason for the sword rather than a shield.

'This is a step along the way.'

The goal from the start was an Inscribed Weapon. This had been made as practice toward that. What weapon would eventually be made, neither Aetri nor Enkrid knew.

Only the belief that it would be made someday remained.

Watching his eyes shine, Enkrid felt a warmth rise in himself too.

His own passion was unchanged, but seeing eyes like that was always something worth experiencing.

Beside him, Frog was bleeding and sweating today as well, working on jewelry.

Enkrid spoke to Frog on a whim. In sheer passion, this one was not losing to anyone.

"Coming along?"

"Don't know."

Right. Not knowing. And still doing it. Even if tomorrow brought no improvement, even without any guarantee, this was something worth doing, so it would be done.

"Keep at it."

Back at the unit, Enkrid had Krais send over some well-dried chrysalis as a gift.

Aetri mentioned later that when Frog received it, her cheeks puffed out wide, which was rare for her.

After that, Enkrid received news of Dunbakel through a letter from the Eastern King.

-Does she normally not wash like this?

Dunbakel was doing just fine.

Time passed. One day, a day when snow was falling.

It had been about a month since Sinar left.

Winter was nearly at its end.

"Hey, been a while. I keep saying stop by when you're not busy, and you make me come all the way here."

The king came to visit. To Enkrid, he was a friend who happened to be a king.

The Stone Road had developed and opened a major trade route with the west. That had created a turning point in trade across the entire continent, and western merchant caravans now passed through Nauril on their way to Border Guard, growing revenues in both cities. He said he had come to confirm all that, but it was all an excuse.

Meeting over tea, what Crang said told you the real reason he had come.

"Aren't you going to ask why Sinar left?"

She had left without a word about returning, and a letter telling him not to look for her had arrived.

"I thought it was her choice."

"Ah, it is a choice."

Crang agreed.

Enkrid had felt before, still vaguely, that he might be able to establish his own swordsmanship. That same feeling surfaced again now.

Had Sinar moved of her own will?

The premonition that followed the question ran in a very bad direction.

Crang continued. His tone suggested nothing needed to be hidden.

"She said she had a duty to fulfill for her elf kin. I also heard she received a duty-brand."

A duty-brand was something like shackles imposed to compel the performance of a specific act. Hearing it explained, that was what it was, the kind that could claim your life if the task was not completed within a set period, making it something worse than having real shackles locked on.

"I believe it has to do with a curse placed on the elf kin. She cooperated with me in order to resolve it, and I advised her to refuse the duty, but Sinar did not."

"A curse?"

"The details, I don't know either."

The tea in both cups had gone cold. Neither of them had taken a single sip.

"One thing is certain: the duty has her in its grip. And that duty will go on tormenting the elf called Sinar Kirhaise."

A short silence followed. Enkrid lifted his cup and drank. The cold tea's bitterness spread across his mouth. The leaves should have been removed after steeping, but he had forgotten them in, and the tea had brewed too strong. It was a variety normally drunk for its astringency, but this was too much even for that.

When Enkrid had chosen these tea leaves, there had been no others, so he had picked them without deliberating. The result was a mouth full of bitterness.

And right now, it was the same. There was no other option worth deliberating over.

He had respected Sinar's choice. But what if that respect had actually been a looking away?

That thought came to him. Had the realization come too late? If he went to find her now, was it too late?

If you did nothing when you thought it was too late, nothing would happen. Enkrid knew that truth far too well.

"Are you going?"

Crang asked. His read on people rivaled Krais's.

"Yeah."

Enkrid nodded. Since Sinar had left, a certain emptiness had lingered, less emptiness, more an unresolved feeling he could not shake.

Why? He understood her not coming back. But Sinar had never explained the reason. Not knowing it had not sat right with him. That was why it had nagged at him. Now he understood.

'Realized it a little late.'

Enkrid blamed his own dullness for a moment, but it would not change anything.

"Why?" Crang asked.

"Feels like a noona who loves a good joke is waiting for me."

An elf-style joke. Crang's brow furrowed.

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