WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 635: Pressing Onward Through the Darkness

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People see, think, and judge within the limits of what they know. The same was true of the Woodguard, the tree-form elves.

Bran felt threatened. He judged this as the worst crisis they had faced since entering the Labyrinth.

Enkrid, on the other hand, was calm. There was no reason to panic, no reason to be flustered. So he did not panic, and he was not flustered.

He simply did what needed doing. Thinking and swinging his sword, nothing more.

A Death Knight.

A knight reborn through the power of the Cursed Ground.

Would that power differ from what it had been in life? In elven terms, perhaps she had become a tougher weed.

Had she become this because she craved life at the threshold of death?

Or had she simply been seized by the Cursed Ground and forced to act against her own will?

It did not matter.

What mattered was that the thing blocking their path was a threat to the knights here.

But was it truly a threat?

Enkrid watched the dark residue forming behind the elf and noted the positioning of her feet, the angle at which her wrist twisted.

His eyes took it in, instinct fired, and thought accelerated.

By the time the elf swung her sword, he had already raised his blade to meet it.

Clang!

Fell and Ruagarne barely managed to catch the exchange between them.

From where they stood, it looked as if the elf was swinging toward a fixed point.

That was because Enkrid's sword had moved there early.

A moment born of accelerated thought and insight. After a single exchange, he saw more.

A sword stripped of flourish, refined to pure efficiency.

Enkrid read the nature of the blade coming at him.

Is she trying to make contact? Is she going for a Bind?

They say a person who swings without intent has no real combat experience.

Even a brain riddled with rot, a mind where maggots had made their nest, would still carry intent in the blade if its owner had been a knight-level fighter in life.

The intent was contact.

He had thought she was going for a Bind, but that was not it either.

One impact, then she pulled back. Enkrid felt something like soot transfer onto the silver-steel sword.

He did not see it with his eyes. He sensed it.

The dead elf called Arjila could not use vital energy. In its place, she drew on the magical power she had received from the Cursed Ground.

The origin was the same. Esther had said as much.

One could substitute vital energy with something else. The reason things had come to this was beyond knowing, of course.

Enkrid pushed his thoughts to full speed and sank into the fight.

One collision, and the deflected blade came flying back.

A heavy greatsword, mismatched with that slender frame, dropped from above.

She swung it with the shortest possible arc. The angle and speed made it nearly impossible to dodge without blocking.

Same as before, not a cut, but a draw toward contact between weapons.

Yet she was not trying to close the gap with a Bind either.

The intent was clear, but what lay beneath it was not. The information needed to fill that gap came from behind.

"Don't let the blades touch!"

Bran shouted. A shout from an elf was rare enough to be worth heeding.

The meaning: transferring the soot through contact. Using that to bring about some change.

A change favorable to the dead elf, and unfavorable to Enkrid.

Everyone stood behind him, so no one could see his eyes. In the dark, both blue eyes burned with light.

Will surged from somewhere unconscious and raced through his whole body.

Thought accelerated, and Future Sight opened.

His senses sharpened to match a mind that saw a half-step ahead.

After that, he left it to instinct. Reading the enemy's openings by instinct was Fell's talent, but for Enkrid it was a skill.

So he had dissected it, studied it, turned it inside out, and run it back through memory. A process of obsession, if you wanted to call it that, he had tasted it, torn it apart, savored it. Sparring with Fell again and again, he had honed and codified it until, now, he could steal a fragment of that talent and use it.

The point was simple: insight spotted the opening, and technique worn into muscle through repetition came out on its own.

Will surging from the unconscious helped.

Chiriririring!

Enkrid let the dead elf have what she wanted.

His blade met hers, and for a moment they sparked off each other six more times in quick succession.

The curse sealed in the Demon Sword transferred to the silver-steel sword. The sword's weight shifted. But Enkrid's movement did not stop, nor did his sword.

The silver-steel sword was light to begin with. Double the weight still left it manageable.

After six exchanges that drove the blades apart, the silver-steel sword parted from the greatsword and pressed a deep kiss to the throat of the elf knight risen from death.

That kiss was a straight line of light, the envoy of death's gift, rendering the dead elf incapacitated once more.

The hand of one elf behind Enkrid, just reaching for the Kiaos, went still.

Dark blood ran from the dead elf's throat in a slow trickle, but there had not been much blood left in her to begin with. It seeped out drop by drop, then stopped.

The beheaded elf knight dropped to her knees with a heavy thud and fell forward.

The soot remaining on the fallen knight's back faded in scattered patches and was gone.

There was no sign the body would move again. They watched in silence for a moment, but it did not stir.

"Let's go," Enkrid said, confirming it was still. He spoke without drama. Spending time among elves, whose emotions were so controlled, seemed to have quieted his own speech without his realizing it.

To put it another way, he did not see much of what he had done as remarkable. And for Enkrid, that was right.

The thing that had come at him had not been a true knight. At best, it had been half of one.

Sinar had said it more than once.

"There is no such thing as an elven knight who cannot use vital energy. Vital energy is the foundation and the origin of an elf. It would be like writing a letter without hands. If you say one could write with their toes instead, then I suppose I would have to say it is like writing a letter without hands or feet."

A profound remark buried between throwaway jokes.

Enkrid had replied that you could always hold the pen in your mouth.

Sinar had answered that he was the sort who would stick the pen between his eyelids if he had no mouth.

She had said it with such perfect seriousness that it had not felt like a joke at all.

"How did you do that?"

Zero came closer and asked. No matter how young an elf was when they began learning to suppress emotion, elves were still people. It was the question of a surprised elf.

"Saw an opening and cut," Enkrid said, the same as he always did. There was no cleaner answer than that.

"Tch."

Fell clicked his tongue. He had caught the rough shape of the exchange. Looking at what Enkrid had done, it was not far from his own swordsmanship.

So that was it, read an opening, and let the sword move on its own.

Did it feel like having his specialty stolen? Not quite. Inside the Madman Knights, exchanging techniques was the most natural thing in the world.

Stopping to sulk about losing something would only prove that was the limit of your ability.

Limits existed to be broken.

Fell had learned that watching Enkrid. But he was not without complaint. That was why he had clicked his tongue.

Talent.

He would never say it out loud, but Fell felt the shortfall in his own.

It was a thought he could never have had if he knew the full weight of every "today" Enkrid had walked through to reach this point.

While answering, Enkrid was already turning things over in his mind.

Meaning and method of execution, and now the method of training.

Countless sparring sessions had let him catch an opponent's openings from beyond the reach of the five ordinary senses. Sixth-sense swordsmanship, you might call it.

Any of the Five Sword Styles could work within it.

As long as he could reach the opponent's body, the method did not matter.

The meaning here: a sword that sees openings.

The method of execution: insight and accumulated experience.

The method of training: repeated sparring.

Fell achieved all of it through raw talent, without the weight of hard-won experience.

I can do it because of the countless todays I've fought through.

Translating something realized through instinct into theory, and even that took only a moment.

"What in the world."

Bran came closer too, still shaken. The two remaining elves could be seen blinking over and over.

Watching them, Enkrid spoke.

"I don't know what you're carrying inside your coat, but I'd rather you didn't plan on using it against Sinar."

The flat tone cut straight to the heart of the matter.

The elf named Arcoiris was thrown off. Did he know everything?

Enkrid's blue eyes fixed on him directly.

This guileless elf knew no lies, and Enkrid could read a situation faster than almost anyone.

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

It was something Arcoiris had said multiple times, before they entered, and after.

The words carried two meanings.

One was the intent to save Sinar.

"Whatever you're carrying, it should be something capable of killing Sinar, at minimum, am I right?"

Enkrid said it again.

The second meaning was killing Sinar.

Rather than leave her suffering as the demon's bride, send her to the side of the gods.

Enkrid had seen through it.

He had not needed to think hard. It was plain to see. Knowing it, he had no particular desire to push the issue.

Elves who had not spent years wandering the continent, ground down by the world, did not know how to lie.

That still held now. Arcoiris had no words left. Choosing silence because one cannot speak a lie was wise enough, but eyes and posture and bearing spoke more plainly than any words, and made clear the core had already been struck.

"It was obvious. Doesn't change anything, knowing."

Ruagarne spoke. Whether it was meant as comfort was unclear, but the shaken feeling among the elves seemed to ease a little.

"...Let's rest a moment," Bran said.

The corridor ran straight, and stopping was easy enough whenever they chose.

That was why those who had entered before had been able to turn back.

Enkrid sat down on the floor. Staring at the thick black dark ahead, a thought came to him.

Turn back. It's dangerous. Wait for another chance.

The dark seemed to be saying just that.

That malice reached him with startling clarity.

It did not matter whether someone had come to fight the Cursed Ground or to save a person. Whatever their purpose, this corridor would wear at their resolve in the end.

By offering the choice to leave at any moment, it made retreat possible.

Anyone whose will was already bent would use it as an excuse to run.

People entered ready to accept sacrifice, then sensed failure, and some turned back.

If this were a war, and the Cursed Ground and the elf city were nations pitted against each other ,

One side chipping away at the other.

The elf city had lost its knights, and many had died here. The Labyrinth, this Cursed Ground, had fed on their blood and flesh and grown stronger.

If they had thrown everything at it the moment they recognized it, they could have destroyed the Labyrinth despite the losses.

Then there would have been no Courtship Demon either.

But the elves had spent their time searching for a way to deal with it without paying any price. Time passed, failures accumulated, and the Cursed Ground had quietly become something too stubborn to deal with easily.

By the time they finally resolved to end it, it would already have been too late.

Persistent malice.

The shape of the demon was beginning to come into dim focus.

The courtship, taking an elf as a bride, was likely a similar operation.

It wanted to devour the elf city. It wanted to leave the Labyrinth and step out into the world.

The beginning of a large-scale Cursed Ground.

If the city was consumed, that was what it would become.

Elvenhome was the word humans used for elf cities in general. If an elf city like that became a Cursed Ground, what would you call it?

Elven graveyard? Elven Grave?

Enkrid closed his eyes for a moment. He had not felt sleepy, yet sleep came without his noticing.

Whether it was the Boatman's doing, or whether his body had simply taken the rest it needed before the danger ahead, he could not say. But the Boatman appeared in the dream.

"I don't suppose I need to say anything, but I'll offer some advice."

The figure on the rocking little boat held a purple lamp and spoke.

"Advice?"

Enkrid tilted his head.

"Throw the remaining Frog, the human, and the elves around you into the dark, and run."

The Boatman cackled. The naked malice threaded through that laughter felt strange, almost unfamiliar.

Enkrid said nothing and opened his eyes.

He had thought he had dozed for only a moment, and indeed only the span of a few blinks had passed.

They refilled their stomachs with jerky and dried provisions. The elves, naturally, ate plants and fruit.

The party moved forward again.

What had Bran and the others felt during that brief rest?

Something like a strange warmth passed through the group of elves.

"Demon Slayer."

"I-I have great respect for you."

Praise for Enkrid, spoken aloud rather than held in their eyes alone. Even Zero said it in a tone touched with feeling.

"Redeem the demon and save our queen."

He had nearly forgotten, but Enkrid already knew Sinar's true standing.

Her name was Sinar Kirhaise.

Elvenhome was the word humans used as a blanket name for elf cities. The actual elf cities each had their own names.

Elves tended to name their cities after the family that led them.

The city Enkrid had come to was named Kirhais.

Even in an elf city governed by a council of representatives, there were families whose role went beyond the symbolic.

The royal family that had ruled the city through the generations.

At present, only Sinar remained. Which meant she was the queen of this city.

"The more surprising thing is that this isn't some kind of elven joke," Enkrid said.

"Pardon?"

The elf named Brisa asked.

"Never mind."

A queen. Nothing short of that could have surprised him more. There were no more Demon Creatures. The corridor gradually widened and opened into a large space.

No path continued beyond it. Or rather, passages could be seen bored through the walls in several places, but going further was beside the point. They had reached their destination, and the objective was right in front of them.

"Sinar."

Sinar Kirhaise, the companion once called the Golden Witch, sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap on a chair made of bone.

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