WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 628: City of Fairies

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Split time. Expand the range of perception. Go beyond what the eyes can see, take in what the ears hear, what the nose catches, what the skin feels.

His body had already responded on its own, so calculating the exact moment the incoming projectile would arrive was almost effortless.

Enkrid registered the arrow's flight time and trajectory, and he had his answer.

He raised his arm, moving it into the path of the incoming arrow, and closed his fist.

Thwack. Trembling.

The arrow sat caught in his hand. The target was clear enough, just below the shoulder blade.

No intent to wound critically.

All of it happened the instant the sound of wind reached his ears.

Enkrid stood frozen with his right hand raised, the arrow shaft and fletching quivering in his grip.

He could sense the rough intent behind the arrow. What he could not do was pinpoint where it had been fired from.

If he traced the trajectory as a line, it pointed straight ahead. His mind could reason that much, but his senses refused to accept it.

The gap between what his head understood and what his instincts told him was genuinely strange.

"I can't read their presence," Fell said.

Enkrid swept his gaze over the surroundings, arrow still in hand. He could not spot anything either.

While he was still looking ,

Ping.

Three more arrows came.

The archers' timing was so sharp that the sound of three arrows cutting through air layered into one. Only the sound, though. His expanded perception told him clearly there were three.

He had caught one. Three was no different.

He dropped the arrow he was holding and snatched two more out of the air with both hands, then kicked the last one aside.

Crack!

The kicked arrow spun off to the side. Catching an arrow was already remarkable enough, but deflecting one with a foot was something else entirely, a feat you would not see from anyone short of a knight.

"I believe it is a spell," Fell said from behind, resting a hand on his sword grip. He meant the fact that no presence could be felt from the attackers.

Enkrid agreed. He waited for a response from the other side.

They did not seem welcoming.

Should he push more aggressively? Whatever he did, he could not predict their reaction at all.

If he made a threat, would they simply rain arrows down on him? And if he stopped every last one of those, would they be willing to talk?

"Quite the greeting, don't you think? Ladies and gentlemen of the pointy ears?"

There was no reason to be polite with people who had just shot at him. Ruagarne let her tongue loose.

"...Outsiders are not permitted entry."

A voice drifted through the green mist. Even hearing it, Enkrid could not locate the source. The dissonance in his senses persisted.

Of course, there were things he could do even without knowing exactly where they were.

Cutting down every tree visible through the mist was one option.

They would hate that.

He was sure of it. Even before knowing Sinar well, elves he had crossed paths with over the years had all been the same. Experience had taught him that much. Elves and the felling of trees did not mix.

That said, they did not always lay down their lives to protect every plant.

When elves were said to die defending trees and forests, it was less about the trees themselves and more about defending their home. In the end, like every other people, survival and prosperity mattered most to them, and the forest simply happened to be the best environment elves could live in.

Grass and leaves, dew and fruit were the staples of an elf's diet, and the vital energy of the forest was something close to their origin.

That was why they built their cities around great trees, called them World Trees, and treated them as sacred.

Whether a particular World Tree held actual magical or sorcerous power, or was simply a very large tree that had been carefully tended, varied from place to place.

Either way, Ruagarne had just said something cutting, so it would not have been strange for the elves to tell a frog's cousin to get lost. But the elf said nothing of the sort, only what they meant to say.

"This is not a place for outsiders."

"I see," Enkrid replied, just as casually.

Would shouting for Sinar to come out actually get her to appear? Probably not. Then again, barging in and causing a scene was also on the table.

He still had arrows in both hands. That could read as a threat to the right person.

"We recognize your skill, but killing us will not lift the barrier."

The elf spoke again. A rational, measured response. Elves would weigh logic even with their lives on the scales.

That composure reminded him of how Sinar had been at first.

They were talking, but it felt almost like shouting into empty air.

The voice came through clearly, yet the source was nowhere. Since training the Sensory Technique, he could tell a southeast wind from a northwest one just by hearing a flag snap. He carried Will in his body on top of that. Still, direction was beyond him here.

He had not come to threaten them. He certainly had not come to torment them.

Though if things went badly, he might have to swing his sword a few times.

If these were the ones making life difficult for Sinar, a brief conversation in the language of blades was not out of the question.

With a few such swings he had cut down the Walking Fire, and cut down the Holy Knight.

So that conversation would not be a pleasant one for the other side.

A few thoughts passed through his mind before Enkrid spoke.

"Sinar Kirhaise."

He announced his purpose by naming the elf he knew.

The forest still gave off no presence.

"I came looking for her."

He gave them enough time to think before adding the rest.

"...Who are you?"

At that, something closer to an ordinary question came back. Enkrid figured he had little worth saying by way of introduction. He assumed the elves would not know him.

That assumption was wrong.

Just because elves lived behind barriers did not mean they were truly cut off from the world. They traded and dealt with other groups too.

Fell had come out of the Shepherds of the Wilderness and knew what it was to live in a similarly closed society. He also knew that no matter how tightly a community shut its ears and eyes, someone with Enkrid's reputation could not be missed. He thought it would look better to make the introduction himself rather than wait for someone else to announce "Enkrid of the Border Guard."

Truth be told, he also just felt like stepping forward.

Fell took one step ahead. His voice came before Enkrid's.

"This is the man known as the Lord of Border Guard, the Guardian of Border Guard, the Iron Wall Knight, the Demon Slayer, the heartbre, ah, skip that one. Enkrid of the Madman Knights."

His voice rang out clearly-clearly enough to carry past the green mist and into the forest beyond.

Perhaps from being knocked around during sparring on the way here, one word had crept into the introduction that did not belong, but the effect was real.

"The Iron Wall Knight?"

A different elf voice came, one that had not spoken before.

"The Guardian of the Demon Realm?"

Another elf followed.

Hey, those titles are getting mixed up. Enkrid started to say something and let it go.

The way to change what others called you was through action, not words.

The elves' tone remained calm and quiet, but something like emotion had crept into it. A faint wonder, a trace of surprise, woven in quietly.

Quiet enough that only someone unusually perceptive would catch it at all.

"A heartbreaker? Then when Sinar returned alone..."

A useless comment slipped in near the end, but now was not the time to address it.

There would be a chance to hear about Sinar. From the way they spoke, it did not sound like she was being held or restrained somewhere.

There were some misunderstandings, but the elves seemed to know who he was.

"Would a visit be possible?" Enkrid asked.

Elves only opened their cities to invited guests. That was the rule.

"If you are truly the Iron Wall Knight..."

The words came back. The elves did not simply take Enkrid at his word. A few more questions and answers passed between them, but in truth, catching arrows out of the air and kicking one aside had already served as proof of identity better than any claim could.

If a fight broke out right now, hiding in the mist was no guarantee of safety. The elves behind the mist knew that as well as anyone.

The short version: someone with that kind of strength had no reason to impersonate anyone.

"It is an honor, Sir Demon Slayer."

That was the conclusion they reached. A clear voice, the voice of what sounded like a male elf, gave that answer.

"I have never seen anyone catch arrows like that. Human knight, you are truly remarkable. Deflecting one with a foot, no less."

This time a female elf spoke, her voice carrying no hint of age in its cadence.

As their words came through more clearly, the mist thinned and spread.

It was only now that he noticed the mist had not moved at all since the beginning.

A perception-disrupting spell.

He only understood it once the mist shifted.

Enkrid filed away the unease he had felt. It went into the library of experience, not a deliberate choice, just a habit formed from years of training the Sensory Technique.

As the mist blurred and thinned, pale shapes began to emerge.

The mist had not disappeared entirely. It was more like the way lengthening shadows take on form as the sun tilts, and that was how five elves appeared.

People tended to picture elves as uniformly slender, but the reality was a little different.

Three of the five were short. Taller than dwarves, but by human standards they looked like children who still had some growing to do before reaching an adult man's height.

Young. Even delicate-looking.

Slight frames, and longbows bigger than their own bodies held in their hands.

Slender as they appeared, the muscle definition along their forearms said they were not children in any way that mattered.

Three of the elves were women, the ones who had fired on Enkrid.

The remaining two were men. One was fairly large in build; the other had white hair.

Enkrid was scanning the group when his gaze settled on the white-haired elf. The elf noticed and spoke. More precisely, Enkrid's eyes had lingered on the white hair a beat longer than the rest, and the elf had caught it.

"Curious? Elves go gray when they grow old too."

"First time I've seen it."

"Most go home to die when the time comes, so it's rare enough to spot. Anyway, I'll apologize for the arrows. They were meant as a warning. I didn't expect you to catch them."

Enkrid gave a small nod to show it was fine.

As the elf said, the arrows had not been aimed at anything vital. The goal was a warning, not harm.

The three that followed seemed more like a test of his ability.

So nothing to hold against them.

His purpose was Sinar and nothing else, and he was satisfied to have met someone who could give him an answer.

Enkrid looked steadily at the white-haired elf. He seemed to be the one with authority.

Sinar had mentioned something like this in passing, that elves valued age highly, that there was no reason not to heed the words of those whose years had deepened their wisdom, and she had made that point more than once.

She had said it several times after mentioning her own age, almost for emphasis.

"Come inside for now."

The white-haired elf made the offer, and Enkrid nodded. Fell and Ruagarne followed behind.

"Sir Demon Slayer."

The large male elf called to Enkrid. Heavy jawline, sharp eyes. Enkrid half-expected a challenge, but when he looked, a faint light of respect was flowing from those eyes.

Faint enough that you would only catch it with close attention. These were people trained from childhood to restrain and manage their emotions. By their standards, what he was seeing was the equivalent of a human rushing forward cheering with bright, shining eyes.

This elf was not the only one. Three of the others wore much the same look.

Though those three had something else in their eyes, a kind of yearning that was hard to name.

Nearly invisible, but there.

He only noticed because he had spent a long time around Sinar and had sharpened his senses. Without that, he would have thought they were simply staring with blank faces.

Still, it was not common to be recognized and looked upon with admiration by people he had never met.

The large elf spoke with careful deliberateness, weighing every word. Each syllable was hard, cool, and stripped of feeling.

But the content was not.

"It is an honor to meet you."

Yeah. That one seemed genuine.

Enkrid read the feeling buried in the elf's measured words and nodded. This was the same elf who had said it was an honor from behind the mist the moment he knew who Enkrid was.

"If the opportunity arises, would you be willing to cross swords with me?"

The elf spoke again. Same tone as before, but Enkrid had already adjusted to it.

"A spar?"

"Yes."

"Whenever you like."

The two of them were exchanging those words when the white-haired elf cut in.

"Do you think this is the right time for that, Zero?"

The rebuke, if it could be called one, came in the same flat calm as everything else.

"My apologies, elder."

The elf named Zero dipped his head briefly. If these had been humans, you might have suspected empty compliance, just an outward gesture. That was how dry the response was. The other three elves said nothing now that their faces were visible. They seemed to be people of very few words.

Enkrid had nothing particular to add either, so he kept his mouth shut.

"Quite the aggressive elf," Fell remarked.

It was sarcasm, delivered in that flat, dry voice of his.

Whether he actually meant it was another question.

The elf looked at Fell. Fell looked back at the elf.

A small flame seemed to flicker between them, but the elf glanced away before it could catch, and the spark died before the kindling had a chance to burn.

"Anticlimactic," Fell muttered.

Thinking about it, Fell was not someone who ever came in second when it came to picking fights or stirring trouble.

He just looked tame next to Rem.

I need to keep myself together.

Enkrid took Fell as a reminder of what not to do and made a quiet mental note.

"This way."

The white-haired elf said and walked on ahead, stepping into the mist without hurry.

His footsteps were nearly silent, the naturally light tread characteristic of the elven people. The reason they were called born assassins.

In any case, they kept walking deeper in. Entering the green mist narrowed the field of view. The mist itself seemed to be a barrier that did not let light fully through.

Thanks to Esther, he had built up a modest store of knowledge about magic. Enough for Enkrid to understand that much.

Then, at some point, the ground dipped slightly, and a strange passage appeared ahead.

It looked like a long tunnel wrapped entirely in leaves. The floor, the ceiling, every surface inside, all leaves.

He could not begin to imagine how something like this was made.

He followed the others inside and walked. At some point, Enkrid lost track of time passing.

Nothing but leaves in every direction, the smell of grass and the scent of flowers filling everything. It felt like moving through a dream.

So it did not even occur to him to think of it as a spell or some mystical thing.

Then at some point he blinked, and the tunnel was gone. The elf city spread out before him.

"Welcome to our city."

The white-haired elf said.

No towering walls. No imposing castle. But something that stopped the eye completely the moment he looked.

Puff.

A massive figure made entirely of wood raised a branch-like arm and exhaled a cloud of tobacco smoke.

"What are you staring at? Never seen tobacco burned before?"

The wooden giant said. Enkrid had a strong urge to pinch his own cheek.

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