WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 645: How to Fight a Demon Creature

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At those words, Bran crumpled his bark-covered face. That was his version of a smile.

"Ha ha."

Ermen and a few other elves laughed too. Some even had tears in their eyes.

Enkrid felt it again, freshly: this was an elf city.

He had not caught it himself, but some of the elves seemed to have understood the joke Sinar had just made.

There was apparently something quite sentimental tucked inside it as well.

"Elf jokes. I could listen to them forever and still not get them."

Enkrid met Sinar's eyes as he said it.

"You don't need to. I'll be right there beside you to whisper the explanation whenever you need it."

Sinar stood, walked over, and answered. Close enough for her breath to reach him.

"You're too close, Sinar."

Enkrid replied, and a few elves who had been watching began to murmur.

"As expected."

"So it's like that?"

"Heartbreaker."

What are they on about?

Enkrid spent two more days recovering his body and mind before finally climbing out of bed.

That rest mattered as much as training, that went without saying.

He needed rehabilitation, so he started from the finger muscles and worked his way outward, going through bodyweight exercises for three days, small muscles to large. On the fourth day he returned to his usual morning training, and his methods were enough to surprise elf and human alike.

"Already?"

"Shouldn't he still be resting?"

"The Demon Slayer's up?"

"Does he have troll blood from one of his parents or something?"

All sorts of things drifted his way. One comment was close to a provocation, but the elf who said it had no malice at all, only worry, the kind that looked ready to give their own life if it came to that. That attitude came from an elf who had never lived outside elf society and simply did not know better.

Elves were always hovering around Enkrid. Many showed up with hands full of fruit or other things.

There were more striking rumors going around than "your mother's a troll." Rumors, not stories.

"So you really are a heartbreaker. The rumors do you justice."

That was more or less the shape of it.

He had no idea how a rumor like that had spread through an elf city.

"Why do they call you that? Ah, well, it seems to be because you've charmed quite a few women and then turned away from all of them."

"When did I ever."

Somewhere in the middle of it he pulled Zero aside to ask, and got an answer he could not accept.

"Sinar said so. Every time she visits the city. Frequently, each visit, every time she opened her mouth."

He might have sighed, but he did not go after her about it right then. There was plenty to do. Even now Zero was right there, eyes bright, waiting for him.

"We promised a spar, didn't we?"

"I thought you'd forgotten. But are you sure your body's all right?"

Fell and Ruagarne were watching from behind. Enkrid wanted to see Zero's true ability clearly, so he did not want the other to hold anything back.

You really cannot judge someone's skill without exchanging blows. Some things only become clear once you're in it.

Enkrid paused to choose his words, then spoke. His intent was to put some fire in the other, words close to encouragement, in a manner of speaking.

"Oh, someone like you? I'd be fine with one arm tied and both legs cut off. Easy. If anything's easier for me right now than breathing, it's sparring with you."

To put that in elf terms, you might say it was said with full sincerity. The elf who had asked whether he had troll for a mother had been a good teacher.

He followed what that elf had shown him. It worked, just as he figured it would.

Zero had been born with a competitive streak and a hunger to win, elf or not.

Elves were not all the same.

There were Frogs who made jewelry, so of course there were elves like this too.

Zero listened and gave a slow, quiet nod. Slower than usual.

"My blade is a bit large for a Naidhl."

He said it flatly, but with senses sharp enough to catch it, a flicker of emotion showed through.

He's angry.

Zero stamped the ground a few times and took his stance.

"I hereby request a spar with Sir Demon Slayer."

Enkrid figured that poking him right here would help train his composure too.

He had grown quite fond of Zero. Full of warm feeling, Enkrid spoke.

"Actually, should we skip the swords? Just hands? Though sparring with a single finger might be a bit tricky."

"...Human. I'll kill you."

Zero lost himself for a moment. An elf who lost emotional control fell apart quickly.

Enkrid looked down at the fallen Zero. "I thought elves were good at keeping their composure."

"That part is a bit of a weak point for me."

"For now, I'd recommend building on your strengths rather than trying to cut out your weaknesses."

It was a light comment, but Zero's eyes lit up and he nodded.

When someone of that caliber says something, you take note of it.

And if you wanted to be certain you did not need to, you had to prove it through ability first.

The next day went more or less the same. Zero challenged him again.

"You can beat a Ghoul, right?"

Enkrid rattled his composure once more.

"Actually, is one of your parents a snail by any chance? I wonder if snail elves exist. You're so sluggish I'm fighting back yawns."

"Graaah, human, I'll kill you!"

After several rounds of that, Sinar came by to ask.

"Are you trying to make an elf berserker?"

"It's composure training."

"Not just tormenting the poor thing?"

"Not at all. But what's this about me being a heartbreaker?"

Sinar paused briefly before answering.

"I can't leave this city. I'm betrothed."

She said it and kept her expression flat, chin lifted. To Enkrid it looked for a moment like she had run out of words.

What she tacked on after was something she had been saying every time their faces met lately.

"Please stop spreading strange rumors."

"Right. I won't."

Sinar was honest. What was already out there could not be helped, so she meant she would not do it going forward.

She had brought Enkrid up every time she visited the elf city before now.

The Alluring Squad Leader who captivated women. The one with countless letters still flying in, never meeting a single lady who sent them.

Sometimes, that he only spent time with women when there was something in it for him.

The third one was about how he only came to her when he wanted to spar, and said nothing to her before setting off on a long journey.

That part about gain, him only coming when he wanted to spar, was true enough.

What do you call someone who sets hearts fluttering and gives nothing back?

"Heartbreaker. That's the nickname going around."

Bran was a good listener. He would sometimes sit with Sinar and criticize Enkrid together. And now that very Enkrid was here in the elf city.

Bran lit the tobacco in his mouth out of habit and walked over.

"Lively as ever, heartbreaker."

"Elves don't lie, but it turns out you have a talent for distortion."

"That we do. We believe distortion is better than a lie. There's a tendency to avoid things when we can avoid them, too."

"Is that what they mean by peace-loving elves?"

Bran looked at the water Enkrid was drinking. He could see the crest of the family that collected morning dew.

The mystery lived in the water. It was a medicinal spring that cleared the blood and strengthened the bones when drunk. One of the elves' treasures.

Getting a drink from that family ordinarily required extraordinary merit.

And there were more than five bottles of that dew-water.

They had every excuse in the book when I asked for just one sip.

No lies, so distortion instead. A flash of a conversation with the head of the dew-collecting family passed through one corner of his mind.

"That dew took a full fortnight to collect."

"I know. That's why I'm only asking for one sip."

"A full fortnight I spent collecting it. It's precious."

"That's exactly why, just one sip."

"I made this over a fortnight, collecting each drop with care."

Distortion and selective deafness were not so different in the end. The family head, stubborn to the point of seeming dim, the most tight-fisted elf of the whole clan, owned that dew.

"Does the water taste good?"

"Oh, it's excellent."

"Then this is a gift."

But there was no point cursing that stingy elf. Bran himself would have given his own heart out of his chest if he could.

He had brought along the sap of a Woodguard instead.

"What's this?"

"Sap. Think of it as an ingredient that can never be sourced through alchemy. Its value isn't comparable to something like that water."

No lies, but distortion was there. Dew and sap were both precious in their own right.

The difference was that one was limited to alchemical use while the dew could be drunk by anyone, so their purposes were entirely different.

Which made it accurate enough to say their values were incomparable.

How do you compare things that serve different ends?

"I'm not going to ask why everyone's falling over themselves to give me things, but this is too much."

Enkrid said it as he accepted the sap. And that attitude of his was something else again, he did not set it down carelessly. He gathered it carefully with the rest.

Beyond that kind of attitude, who would hold back from giving anything to the person who killed a demon and saved the whole clan?

Not just Bran. Every elf was well disposed toward him.

"It's not too much."

Bran shook his head.

"Let's say it isn't, then."

There are people you find oddly comfortable, and for Enkrid, Bran was one of them.

Bran stood beside him, still as a tree, watching.

And since he was literally an elf made of wood, it was not like a tree at all. He simply was a tree, standing there.

Tree-form was one of the Woodguards' signature skills.

The technique knights used, Assimilation, had come from the elves in the first place, so melting into the environment was nothing to these people.

After that, a few Dryads came and went, each leaving a leaf as a gift. Dryad leaves, another of the elves' treasures.

Enkrid received each one and stacked them inside a carefully folded cloth. Four leaves now.

Watching, Bran thought to himself,

They'll end up digging up the whole field and handing over the seedlings too.

Meaning the household was going to be ruined at this rate. Then Ermen came over.

He also arrived with gifts in both hands.

"I don't think any words I could say would convey what I feel. So I only hope you'll accept this."

At the deepest part of the clan's city grew something called the ten-thousand-year tree, a tree that had kept the forest's vital energy flowing through this whole area for over ten thousand years.

The World Tree, as it was commonly called. Ermen had brought one of its fruits.

To hand that over, every council member would have to agree and the queen herself would need to give her seal.

Bran thought it through and wondered who could possibly refuse.

"When the weather turns warm, please eat it then. It warms the body and protects it, but for now it needs time to ripen. And Sinar must remain in the city. You'll understand that, I hope?"

"Yes, I heard already."

He had been told not long after waking. The promise to spar with him until the end of his days was a vow to give her life if ever asked, and she had told him she had chosen to protect the city. Enkrid respected that.

Then Ermen, who had come to visit, quietly knelt. His manner was solemn, still, composed.

Both knees went to the ground. That was the same for humans and elves alike, the kind of gesture reserved for when a plea went beyond simple asking, when it came from something desperate.

"Ermen?"

Bran, who had been watching, cracked free of his tree-form and called to him. Ermen did not look back.

"I have a request. Sir Demon Slayer, who came from Border Guard."

"You didn't have to do that."

Enkrid scratched his head and answered. He had stopped moving Spark in his hand.

He had been sorting through everything filling his mind, working it out piece by piece, when Ermen arrived.

"Teach me how to fight Demon Creatures."

Enkrid blinked once, quietly. His insight moved through the elf society's past and present and into its future.

Peace.

Elves, who prized stability, had lived in a closed society keeping their distance from the Cursed Ground, demons, and war alike. They believed that was how they protected the clan, and so they had.

Then a Cursed Ground formed inside the clan's own city.

Crisis.

The demon had gone beyond a threat and tried to swallow the entire clan whole. It was the experience of having their whole group come within a hair's breadth of total collapse.

Elves were not fools.

If there was something they had learned from that, what was it?

That for the sake of stability and peace, when fighting was necessary, you had to fight. The attitude had to change. That said, you could not call all of this tragedy the result of elves stubbornly digging in and refusing to budge.

In truth, they had probably been changing all along. Just too slowly.

What Ermen had just said pointed toward a drastic shift.

For no particular reason, something Sinar had said a few days ago came back to him.

"I can't leave the city. You know that, don't you?"

"That's the fortieth time you've told me."

"I could tell you as many times as my age."

"That's over four hundred times?"

"That was a slip of the tongue. See you later."

She had come by whenever she felt like it and said that. The words admitting her own mistake had stayed with him for a while.

That was not the kind of thing you would expect to hear from her.

Had she been wishing for something that badly? Had she been so focused on saying something else that the words slipped out?

"I can't leave the city. That can't be helped."

That was the heart of it.

Ah, this elf was really something.

An elf who cannot lie distorts the truth instead. She belonged to a guardian family and had to protect the city, the clan.

"To fight Demon Creatures, wouldn't they need basic training first? Teaching them one by one here would mean staying a few more months, wouldn't it?"

Fell asked from behind. Ruagarne was quicker than Fell.

"That's not what he means."

And Enkrid's mind worked faster still.

"They say the vital energy in this city is starting to weaken now, don't they?"

The damage the demon had left behind. The land's energy was fading.

He had heard as much from Sinar and several other elves. Now that he thought about it, it seemed like all of them had come at Sinar's prompting to tell him.

"You know about that?"

Ermen had been thinking about relocation. Whatever Demon Creatures blocked the way, whatever humans stood in the way, they would fight through all of it. The elves were going out into the continent now.

They would press forward through hardship and adversity like running bare-handed across open wilderness to survive.

Like scattering a single flower seed on empty ground and waiting for a garden to grow.

But if there was already a foundation, they did not need to struggle quite like that.

When you run across the wilderness, a cart instead of two legs makes for better traveling. And instead of waiting on a single seed, spreading fertilizer and planting seedlings brought flowers faster and easier.

"Let's start with the relocation."

Enkrid said it.

This was the beginning of learning how to fight Demon Creatures.

Stand next to someone who fights well. That was the first lesson.

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