WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 659: The Order He Wished and Dreamed Of

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Ragna's hand twitched at Rem's sermon and drifted up to his sword grip, but he did not draw. Cutting down a wounded man was not a win, it was the same as losing.

Later.

He could kill Rem once he had healed. Ragna endured.

Jaxon spent a moment considering whether to slit the man's throat before nightfall rather than wait until dawn.

A stiletto jabbed into the solar plexus would do nicely, Carmen's, coated in poison, or failing that, a clean cut across one ankle. Naturally, he only thought about it. He would not actually kill him. What about slipping something into his food instead? There was a drug that caused unstoppable diarrhea.

No, poison won't work on that bastard's stomach.

Westerners had iron guts, and Rem was worse than most. Even setting that aside, Rem would simply refuse to eat if he sensed something mixed in, the odds of him catching it by smell alone were high. Concocting something odorless would take far too much effort, and spending that kind of work on a barbarian felt like a waste.

"Lord."

Audin called out to his god without a trace of amusement. The word carried pure fury this time. The God of War might be on the verge of a divine manifestation.

Golden light rippled across Audin's entire body, rolling from his ankles up to his pectorals in small waves, then fading.

The Holy War texts said to forgive even a sinner who had received due punishment, and to forgive one who had erred out of sheer inadequacy.

This was squarely the latter. Audin resolved to forgive Rem, who simply lacked anything inside his skull.

Rem looked satisfied. He had done what he set out to do. After finishing his sermon, he spoke in his usual way.

"Hey, the captain's worth sparring with now. Oi, directionally-impaired bastard, start calling him Vice-captain from here on. Big guy, drop 'brother' and just say 'hyung.' And you, wildcat, just try not to be seen."

"There is no Vice-captain."

Enkrid shot down the problematic part first.

"Oh, is that so? Fine, have it your way."

Rem smiled and nodded, as if it made no difference either way.

The three had already held back once, so they let Rem's words pass. They had seen it with their own eyes, and they knew the force of what Rem had just done. And Rem had only been first. Each of them had been hiding something of their own.

"Looks like all the medicine made from Dryad leaves is going to end up used on you personally."

Ann came over after what had been either a spar, a brawl, or a natural disaster, and started applying various medicines to Enkrid's body as she spoke.

Jaxon stood nearby asking questions, and unexpectedly he knew quite a bit about medicine, so the two of them found plenty to talk about.

Watching them while he was being treated, Enkrid thought they did not look particularly at odds.

He asked Jaxon, who was being warmer than expected.

"Doesn't your girlfriend get angry?"

It was a random joke implying he was getting a bit too cozy with Ann, probably a side effect of spending too much time around elves. Jaxon just stared blankly for a moment, then said this.

"One poisoned dagger would be enough. Approach before she can use her swordsmanship."

Enkrid fell quiet for a moment. He remembered something from about two days ago, when Jaxon had come up from behind and tapped him on the back.

He had not said much about it at the time and let it go with mild surprise, but hearing what Jaxon said now, it clicked.

Back then I wasn't careless. Even if a dagger or an arrow had come flying out of nowhere, I would have reacted. I could even hear Odd-Eye snorting from quite a distance away.

Odd-Eye had stuck around for about two days after confirming Enkrid was back, then left on his own terms.

As if that much was perfectly sufficient between friends, he had not rushed over or tried to show more warmth than that.

Everything happening nearby had been within the range of his perception, including Odd-Eye's comings and goings.

If it had mattered, or if his instincts had fired, he would have known. Yet Jaxon had slipped past every thread of that sensory web and tapped him on the back.

He had given up his back.

If Jaxon had been holding a poisoned dagger at that moment?

"That was the time, wasn't it."

"That was the time."

Words only the two of them understood.

"What are you talking about?" Ann asked, but neither of them bothered to explain. There was simply too much that could not be put into words, things like silent thrusts and the way Jaxon had moved through the web of awareness Enkrid had spread around himself.

Ann did not press further. She doubted she would understand even if they explained, and honestly she was not that interested.

Her interests were making medicines, compounding remedies for every illness, and Ragna. That was the full list.

Enkrid turned it over again after hearing Jaxon.

Rem used a sling and prepared something that would burst even if blocked. Jaxon said he could take the back.

It was a different shape from sparring with Rem, but it was interesting all the same.

It reminded him of that children's game where you tie a long strip of cloth to your back and chase each other trying to grab the other's tail.

Don't let anyone take your back.

Sparring with Jaxon in the usual sense would be pointless. The only way to win was to beat him in the realm of perception.

With Rem, the task was to withstand whatever he threw. Both of them seemed to be saying the same thing, just in different forms. That was how it sounded.

Not caught yet.

Neither had said it plainly, but you did not need words for intent to carry.

These were two men who had pushed past a line and kept moving forward.

How long had it been since he surpassed them? And here they had turned it around again already.

Rem had said he was just the start. Next came Ragna. As soon as Enkrid's body recovered, he went back at Ragna.

To put it simply, Ragna was dead serious about dismantling the swordsmanship Enkrid had worked so hard to build.

Swish.

Sparring Ragna was the opposite of sparring Rem. There was nothing loud about it, Enkrid could not even bring their blades to meet.

"How does it feel?"

Ragna asked. An elation showed in his red eyes that had not been there before. He was enjoying himself.

He had stopped mid-swing, still holding the pose, but there was no gap to be found. Something extraordinary lived inside an ordinary cut.

You could see it too.

"How did you do that?"

"Put some force behind it."

Hearing it put that way made Enkrid almost feel bad for the elf Ermen. Was that supposed to be an explanation?

"Is putting force behind it really all it takes?"

"Yes, it is."

Ragna said it like it was obvious, and Enkrid privately agreed with him.

If there was nothing else you could do but put force behind it, then you put force behind it. What else was there?

Ragna had momentarily doubled the reach of his sword, creating something similar to an elf's vital-energy blade along the edge and dragging it through. Enkrid had felt in his gut that blocking it would mean death, and barely managed to dodge in time.

In other words, this was not something meant for sparring.

"Is this really a spar?"

Enkrid asked.

"Does that bother you?"

Ragna asked back.

Rem and Ragna both, they had let their madness out. They had not come looking for sparring rules. They had come with only the methods they believed would beat him.

No rules. Nothing fixed. Only the will to push forward, the hunger to improve.

How could he not enjoy this?

"No."

Enkrid answered plainly. A smile had settled on his face without him noticing.

Of course it did not bother him. Ragna's sword could not be blocked and was nearly impossible to dodge. You could call it a sword that cut through the Wave-Blocking Sword.

I need to understand what he wrapped around that blade before I can think about stopping it.

Ragna did not seem to fully know himself what he had done or how. Figuring it out would mean digging and asking and pressing him about it.

Establishing the system.

That was not finished yet. In a way, this was closer to the beginning. No, it was the beginning. He was only starting now, which meant there was a great deal left to do.

Finally, Audin came forward with a solution he had found on his own. He had simply copied Enkrid's approach.

"It is a method for blocking a downpour."

The specifics might differ slightly, but Audin had used a technique of blocking and absorbing every hit from the Wave-Blocking Sword through sheer endurance. When the Numbers Game fell against him partway through, he had made up for it with his body, and the sacred-armored iron plate was hard enough to hold against Penna.

In that same moment, Audin had used divine power in a form similar to what the other two had done. The golden light gathered and thickened into something like dense leather.

Condensed and layered over.

Will was a formless force. Could it really be gathered and compressed just by willing it?

A doubt rose. A question too. But the thought shifted almost at once.

If you believe something is impossible, nothing will come of it.

If you believe it is possible, anything can happen.

The knight of a former age, Aker, had poured his Will into a sword and fashioned something close to a Demon Sword. What he placed inside had been a piece of his own will, and that piece became a self that voiced its intent from within the blade. It was his Transference that made it work.

Will, Sorcery, divine power, all of it can change form.

Endure was the strength to withstand, but train it far enough and it became Iron Body. Will had transformed and hardened into something that shielded the body.

"They say there is a stage where it does not dry up and does not cease, and that is called Ousque. And they say there is a stage where the very nature of what one possesses differs, and that was called Induless. Ancient language."

Words Ruagarne had said once came back to Enkrid. She had passed on what had been handed down through generations, and only now, arriving at this point, could he turn them over in his mind and build something new from them.

Ousque is a well that never runs dry, it refers to the quantity of Will. And Induless is...

Not quantity but quality. A form of Will that differs in kind. And how was that cultivated?

The path ahead looked impossibly far when he thought about how to grasp it and grow to understand it.

He could almost hear the Boatman somewhere, sneering and mocking him.

"And when are you going to master that one? By dying thousands of times again, like before? Wear yourself down, break yourself apart. You'll be ruined and stuck in today forever."

The Boatman's taunting meant nothing to Enkrid. As always, it only stirred him up.

Induless.

He had Ousque, and had even given it expression through his swordsmanship. But Induless was a domain he knew nothing about.

Thud.

His heart beat. Joy surged up and he wanted to sprint somewhere. The emotion hit him like a current. Excitement and anticipation made him want to move, to do something with his body.

"...Are you actually planning to sleep outside under the stars? Why are you demolishing a perfectly good barracks? I genuinely cannot follow the logic. Not that I need to, so I'll leave it. We'll rebuild it, a bit larger this time. Until then, live in a tent. That's comfortable enough, right?"

Krais was saying something beside him, but the words were not really landing.

"Are you listening? You don't look like you're listening. Right, you're not. What has you this far gone now."

Krais gave up on Enkrid and turned away. There were things that needed permission and work to sort out, but in a state like this the man would not hear a word anyway.

Enkrid stood in that spot and performed three hundred downward cuts. Repeating simple drills while letting his thoughts run was an old habit.

He puzzled over it, turned it around in his mind. Looking toward a new destination in the middle of that process, dreaming toward it, he could not help but feel glad.

By the time evening came, Enkrid had settled his excitement enough to look at his unit and say what was honestly on his mind.

"I mean this sincerely. You're all out of your minds."

It felt like he was channeling Crang, speaking with more candor than usual. He meant every word.

And every single member of his unit bristled at it.

"...I genuinely do not want to hear that from you, Captain. I mean it."

Rem did not flare up, but he said it with more seriousness than Enkrid had ever heard from him.

"Begone, evil spirit. Lord, drive out the demon that has taken root inside this man's head."

Audin prayed. He even called Teresa over to sing a hymn beside him.

Teresa nodded and joined in at once, lending her voice to the effort of casting out whatever had possessed Enkrid.

"Who exactly is that meant to be aimed at? Did Ann put something in the medicine?"

Jaxon looked at the trace of eagerness and joy visible in Enkrid's eyes and said it.

Without some kind of poison involved, this made no sense. There was no accounting for why he was suddenly like this.

Then again, thinking about it, this man had always been like this. His skill had always jumped without warning, and he had always done something that looked like madness.

Nothing new. The uncomfortable part was simply being lumped in with the barbarian and the rest of them.

Jaxon shifted his feet with practiced ease and stepped back, nudging Ropord forward ahead of him.

"Not me. I'm perfectly sane."

Ropord denied it, and Fell muttered from the side that maybe going mad was itself a kind of talent.

Ropord heard it and answered, "Sure, then you're a genius. You're already a complete lunatic."

The two glared at each other.

Esther sat on the roof in panther form with her chin resting on her paws, watching. Ruagarne was beside a tent set up near the demolished barracks, roasting caterpillars on a wooden skewer.

Roasted, they tasted sweeter than honey, so she was not planning to share. Not that anyone would ask.

She was roasting the caterpillars one by one, crackling away on the stick, when she paused and puffed out her cheeks with a grin.

"Was there really any need to say that out loud?"

Meaning there was no need, of course. Naturally, no one paid her any attention.

Truth was always bitter, but if you never put the bitter thing into words, you could keep it hidden.

"You're calling me crazy? I don't think so. Well, I'll grant that everyone had no idea what they were doing when I asked for a spar. So maybe."

Ragna's final remark sparked a fresh round of chaos.

"What? You want to die? The captain's an arm, but you're a head. You directionally-impaired bastard."

"I'll cut that down before it ever gets close."

"Want to try?"

"Go ahead."

Rem and Ragna went at each other.

"Stop going on about talent. If you set a ceiling before you even start running, you'll only ever reach it."

"Ah, I happen to have limitless talent so it doesn't concern me, but you're a bit different, aren't you? Is that why you're irritated? That's alright. I understand. I won't pat you on the back, but I'll look the other way. I won't say a word to the trainees you're in charge of."

Fell said it while mimicking zipping his lips shut. Ropord flinched at the sight.

Since when did this bastard get so mouthy? His skill at provoking people had changed somehow. It used to be about the same level as his own, but not anymore.

"You want to die?"

Ropord fought back.

"Huh, most people in this world don't want to die, but it turns out you're the exception?"

Fell handled it smoothly.

No question about it. He had grown. Why? The journey with Enkrid. Something he had picked up on the way back.

With that realization, Ropord shot Enkrid a look carrying a faint trace of resentment, then immediately threw the resentment away entirely.

At first he had wondered why Enkrid taught Fell separately, but thinking it over, what did it really matter?

He just had to catch up himself.

Ruagarne finished the caterpillars and ate them. Jaxon started carving a piece of wood he had found from somewhere.

Scrape, scrape, thin curls of bark fell away beneath the blade.

Watching all of it, Enkrid smiled quietly. And the thought came to him.

He really did love this place. This moment. These people.

Not one of them mocked another person's dream, and if they thought their skill was lacking, they began training. That was simply what you did. No envy, no trying to win through the wrong means.

For them, it was just obvious.

Was it really that obvious? How much had he wandered to find this?

How many people had there been who envied and cursed and laughed at him?

The thought came on its own. The order of knights Enkrid had wished for and dreamed of was right here.

And so.

"How would you feel about walking the path of a Holy Knight? One must believe in a god, after all."

When someone asked him that the next day, he was able to shake his head with firm resolve.

"And you are?"

"You could call him my adoptive father. Brother."

A visitor who had come to the Border Guard while Enkrid was away in the elf city.

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