A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 632

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 632: Cave, Labyrinth, Demon Realm

= = =

"Damn."

Bran said it in that voice of his, dry as crumbling leaves.

"That was something."

The words came again, and this time a trace of feeling crept into his blunt tone.

Enkrid drew the sword back, and Ruagarne held out a square of cloth. He wiped the Manticore's blood from the silver-steel sword's blade and sheathed it. The ring of steel on steel as it slid home broke the silence that had settled over the area.

Everyone had gone quiet after watching him cut down the Manticore in a single stroke.

The eyes that had held respect for Enkrid now filled with wonder and shock.

"In one blow?"

"Impressive."

"I should stop thinking of him as a rival."

A few elves muttered among themselves.

Enkrid had never taken the elves for fools.

Proof enough: even without him stepping in, it would not have cost three lives to kill the Manticore, whatever Ruagarne had said.

Four archers supporting eight elf swordsmen, and on top of that the power of spirits and vital energy.

'Maybe one death, if things went badly.'

With a little luck, they could have won without any casualties at all. And if there were factors he had not yet accounted for, luck might not even be necessary.

'Skilled enough that they could take it with no deaths.'

Not in one stroke like this, though.

On the surface it had looked, as Ruagarne said, like at least three would have to die to bring the Manticore down.

But what if someone had chosen to sacrifice themselves deliberately? These were people capable of that. He could see it in the gravity behind their eyes.

He had only known it after turning back to look at the elves once the fight was done.

Some of them had simply been full of spirit. Others, among that group, had already made peace with dying.

The difference between those who had accepted death and those who had not.

'Soldiers.'

It was the same gap between trained fighters and ordinary people. Enkrid's ability to read a situation had always been sharp, but after layering in the Sensory Technique, the habit of fighting with the environment in mind, and Future Sight, he could now cut straight to the heart of things in an instant.

'Even elf society has soldiers.'

These were the core of the group before him. Mixed in with ordinary elves.

The eight who had stepped forward with blades showed clear signs of training.

By Border Guard standards, four of them could handle basic drills without trouble.

Put them through actual training and even elves, accustomed as they were to keeping their feelings in check, would probably grind their teeth, but they had been forged by whatever training they had received.

Among the archers, there was the same gap you would find between a professional and a hobbyist.

Some of the archers could handle spirits and vital energy. Most could not.

So.

"It would be better if only some of us go into the cave," Enkrid said evenly. Ignoring reality would only add to the body count.

"That is what I would have suggested," Ermen said, sounding as though he were watching a dog bark from the far side of a river.

"Elves are stubborn," Bran added. Even knowing they were outmatched, they had wanted to go in.

"Even knowing they would die?"

Enkrid asked, and Bran's mouth opened.

"Some of them genuinely cannot grasp the reality of it. Others cannot accept that all of this has fallen on Sinar's shoulders. And."

"And?"

The friendly tree giant let a slow smile spread across his face. The bark of his lips twisted upward, and it was unmistakably a grin.

"Four of the male warriors are in love with Sinar. They would rather die than leave her as a demon's bride."

As Bran said it, three elves stepped forward from right beside the large one.

Male, and clearly trained. So these were the soldiers, the fighters, the ones who had been properly drilled. That was how they read.

Their expressions were calm but serious, brows furrowed slightly, like men turning something over in their minds.

The smallest of the three drew a long, deliberate breath and spoke.

"I would be perfectly fine as her second husband. What do you say?"

No matter how absurd a statement, Enkrid took it at face value and searched for the meaning behind it.

A second husband to Sinar. Which meant someone was already first.

'That would be me.'

For a moment, his thoughts went slightly sideways.

"...Is that something done in elf society?"

That was the best he could manage while keeping himself together.

Nobles sometimes kept concubines or multiple wives, though not all of them did, but could there not also be cases of a woman with multiple husbands?

Empty the cup before you fill it, someone had once said. Instead of being startled, Enkrid chose to respect their customs.

The other two elves spoke at the same time.

"Stop joking."

"I would be fine as the third, ah, hm."

The third elf had been about to add another quip without reading the room, then caught himself and shut his mouth. Ermen looked at him steadily, and by human standards that look would have qualified as severe.

Ruagarne, listening from behind, nodded slowly.

"So it was a joke."

Whether to feel relieved about that was one question.

Or whether to be impressed that they could still crack elf-style jokes in a situation like this was another.

After that, Ermen began sorting out who would go in and who would stay.

Everyone stated their reasons and argued their case, but they kept glancing over at Enkrid.

They had figured it out too.

In this situation, it could not have been unclear who stood the best chance of saving Sinar.

Demon Slayer.

'So that is why they welcomed that name.'

The respect in their eyes made sense now. If they already knew who he was.

'A sword that kills demons.'

Was that not exactly what this group needed most?

There was nothing political about it, no angle being worked.

It was only the single-minded desire to save Sinar.

They had not bothered reaching out because they assumed she had turned down his offer, but they were not short on desperation.

While he turned it over in his head, Ermen's voice cut through.

"Bran, can I count on you?"

"Who else would be better suited?"

"Brisa."

"Yes."

"Arcoiris."

"Ready."

A few names were called. Those not called spoke up quietly, one by one, laying out why they should be included.

Among those reasons were words about how much each of them had cared for Sinar over the years.

And because of that, they had once called her a cursed child to her face?

It was hard to tell whether that was an elf joke or something they meant.

So Enkrid stopped trying to tell. He let them sort it out themselves.

While they argued behind him, he studied the cave.

"This is no ordinary place," Ruagarne said from beside Enkrid.

"It is the Cursed Ground."

At that, Fell spoke up too.

"Whatever's in there, you just cut through it all, right?"

Good confidence to have. When Fell lost his nerve, he could not get even half his real ability out. Even during sparring, Enkrid had always kept that in mind, throwing a few words his way to make sure momentum did not slip away from him.

"Shepherds of the Wilderness? What kind of shepherd gets beaten up by the sheep?"

"Worse than Ropord."

"You talk about talent with those skills?"

"What are you doing out there, dancing?"

Words like those had struck something in Fell and pulled out everything he had.

Knowing the right thing to say to the right person was one of Enkrid's strengths. He did the same now.

"Good. I'm counting on you."

At that, Fell rolled his shoulders.

If a few words could lift someone's momentum this much, what a profitable exchange.

Staring at the cave mouth himself, Enkrid could feel something ominous pressing at the edges of his mind, trying to shake him loose, whispering in his ear like an Evil Spirit conjuring hallucinations, but he let it pass without concern.

They said the Cursed Ground planted dark seeds of dread in people just by being looked at.

It did not take hold in Enkrid.

Ruagarne was the same.

For her, though, a sense of the ominous was something closer to a sign of change, and for a Frog as curious as she was, it was not entirely unwelcome.

Ruagarne had been watching the cave when she noticed a faint flush rising in Enkrid's face. She asked, "How are you feeling right now?"

She asked him that sometimes. This was one of those moments.

She wanted to know what angle he was taking, what he was thinking, how he was making sense of all this.

It was the kind of curiosity that could only be called a Frog's.

Enkrid turned inward for a moment, then answered honestly.

"A little excited, honestly."

He meant it. A demon, they had said. He was curious what it would show him.

When training hard in swordsmanship, he had always found himself hungry for a real fight. This felt the same. Enkrid knew he had that side to him, that appetite for a worthy enemy.

"Right. I figured you would say something like that."

Ruagarne nodded. By now his answers were starting to fall within the range of what she expected. Observation and study paying off.

It satisfied some of that Frog curiosity of hers.

And what he would show her going forward, that was something she looked forward to even more.

Excited as he was, Enkrid had not lost sight of his first purpose: to see Sinar and ask her directly. He had not forgotten that.

The three of them stood looking at the cave together, and from behind, Bran walked up with his usual tobacco between his lips.

Ermen still seemed to be convincing some of the remaining kin.

Fragments of the elf language drifted back between the other words.

"What is the name of this Cursed Ground?"

Enkrid asked the Woodguard he had grown comfortable with. Bran pursed his lips and pushed out a round ring of smoke, then squeezed the spent tobacco in his fist to put it out.

You would need more than ordinary fire to burn Bran's skin, so a small ember was nothing.

That was not exactly a reason for a tree giant to smoke tobacco.

Trees feared fire, that much was simple fact. Bran smoking was strange and unusual.

What he had just done, translated into human terms, was something like pressing a lit cigarette out against his palm.

Though with such a difference in species, a direct comparison was probably not quite right.

"No name. We just call it the Labyrinth. More precisely, we chose not to name it. There are times we call the demon inside the Courtship Demon, but we never gave it a proper name either."

The Courtship Demon. A rather romantic title.

Listening to Bran explain, it was easy enough to understand why.

The more a demon's name was spoken, worshipped, and feared, the more power it gathered.

Rem had once said something similar from a Sorcery standpoint.

"There are ways to deliberately unmake a name, but that is a last resort sort of thing. And if you have gotten scared enough to need that, you have already been wrung dry and you cannot even bring yourself to name it in the first place."

The intent was a little different, but the meaning was close enough.

"Looks like they are about ready," Bran said.

Enkrid turned to look, and it was true. Three more elves had joined the group. Ermen stood among them and spoke.

"Four total, counting Bran. We have narrowed it down."

Narrowed it down was one way to put it. They had cut the numbers sharply.

"Four?"

Ruagarne asked. She was a Frog. If something was unclear, she did not let it go.

Most of her attention was on Enkrid, but by nature she could not pass over something she did not understand. This was no different.

"I would clearly only be in the way."

Ermen had taken himself out.

When it had seemed like everyone would have to go in together and die, he had been prepared to enter as well, but now something close to hope had appeared. So now he wanted to send in a smaller, sharper group.

What Ruagarne did not follow was why so many of the ones who looked useful had been left behind.

"It seems like all the ones who handle spirits or vital energy have been cut?"

"That could not be helped."

Enkrid looked at how things were unfolding, then looked at the Cursed Ground they called the Labyrinth.

He thought back to the technique the elf had shown moments ago, using vital energy and spirits.

'Enough to take down a Manticore.'

That counted as real fighting strength.

'They had been handling waves of Demon Creatures up until now.'

And yet the elf knight who had gone into the Labyrinth had died. What did that string of facts say?

His thoughts accelerated and arrived at an answer.

"Inside there, elves cannot use vital energy. Is that right?"

Ermen's eyes widened slightly. That was how surprised he was.

They settled back to normal almost immediately, and he nodded before answering in that same unhurried tone.

"That is why we chose only those who have trained the body."

By this point, Enkrid's ability to read a situation had gone past sharp and into something approaching foresight.

The thoughts organized themselves, the steps played out, and a conclusion arrived once more.

'Elves who rely entirely on vital energy had no intention of going in from the start.'

Going in would only add bodies.

Ermen had always meant to sort this out at the cave entrance and send only some of them in. Enkrid's arrival had simply moved the timeline forward.

'A catalyst.'

His presence had made it easier to convince the elves who had wanted to follow.

Vital energy was something close to the foundation of an elf's strength. If it could not be used inside the cave, most of their fighting power was gone before they even stepped through.

"We cannot leave Lady Sinar as a demon's bride."

The elf who had cracked the joke earlier said it. Calm, but with a thread of resolve running beneath the words. He was one of those going in.

His name was Arcoiris.

Right. No one could let that stand.

He would throw questions at her the moment they met, but that could wait.

With enough understood, there was nothing left to argue about.

"May the vital energy of tree and flower watch over you, and may the goddess of fortune turn her eyes your way."

Ermen said it. Enkrid had already checked his gear, and there was nothing left to prepare.

"Then."

A short farewell, and he took his first step.

A line of black char marked the cave entrance, the boundary of the Cursed Ground they called the Labyrinth.

And as with any house, an uninvited guest received a certain kind of welcome. The Labyrinth, as its own master, offered no different.