WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 661: Huh?

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It started with a fruit seller.

"Should I call you lord, or castellan, or..."

"Graham is the castellan. I'm the Knight Commander."

Enkrid answered the merchant without much thought. He looked thoroughly at ease.

"Then, Commander, have one of these."

The fruit seller held out two plums with a sly grin. Enkrid popped one into his own mouth and passed the other to his companion, the Ragged Holy Man.

The Holy Man blinked his white-cataract eyes, took the plum, and bit down.

Crack. The flesh split open, and a sweetness hiding inside the tartness bloomed through his mouth. The smell hit sharp and full at the nose. A ripe plum, through and through.

"It's sweet," Enkrid said.

"It is," the Ragged Holy Man agreed. A luxury made possible by the large orchard recently established deep inside Greenfield.

The nobility near Nauril, the kingdom's capital, kept their own estate orchards for exactly this reason, so calling it a luxury was no overstatement.

They moved on past the cluster of traveling merchants, and a trader at a low stall off to one side called out in greeting.

"I'm with the Rockfreed Trading Company now."

No ordinary merchant. The one speaking was a Giant who had introduced himself as a traveling seller.

Enkrid held up the cloth wrapped around his hand.

"This held up well."

It was a cloth gauntlet with a thin layer of leather stitched inside for structure, made from the fabric he had once bought from the Giant.

"It would. I don't sell shoddy goods."

The Giant recognized it and nodded, though his voice rang out louder than usual. The Ragged Holy Man, having no particular place in the conversation, stood to one side and watched.

"What are you selling today?"

"Things like these."

The Giant showed off the spread on his stall, a mix of odds and ends. Among them were amulets, and a ring that gave off a dim, ominous air.

"They say it brings nightmares every night, but in exchange it wards off one piece of bad luck."

The Giant's voice drew the eyes of people passing nearby. Enkrid examined the items.

He could sense something now, a faint quality he would have missed before.

'Must be the training with Esther.'

His experience slashing through the Walking Fire and dealing with spells had sharpened it further.

Just as the Giant had said, something clung to the ring. Look closely and you could make out a thin, dark mist coiled faintly around it, something no one else nearby seemed to notice.

Travel the continent long enough and you came across pioneer villages built in places no city had claimed. Some sat in patches of land lucky enough to be clear of Demon Creatures; others held on by enduring raids from smaller ones. Among those that survived, some had dealings with local sorcerers or witches in the area. The ring was likely that kind of thing. Not hard to guess.

Sure enough, the Giant gave a short, blunt account of where the item came from, and for once he talked more than usual. Strangely forthcoming, this one, compared to his normal self. Had he ever explained things in this much detail before?

"I probably don't need it," Enkrid said plainly. If he had wanted something like this, he would have asked Esther.

"Figured as much."

"Then why explain it to me?"

The Giant was seated on the ground, and even so his eye level nearly matched Enkrid's. He leaned forward and murmured.

"For the people walking past."

His looks and his race kept most people from approaching, so business was not easy. Enkrid had come along at just the right moment, and he had used that.

So that was why the voice had been so loud.

'He's become a real merchant.'

Though of course, the Giant would never step outside the principles he had set for himself. That was the kind of person he was.

"You've gotten shrewd," Enkrid said, keeping his voice low.

The Giant gave a small nod.

"Off you go now."

"Right. I'm going."

There were quite a few people Enkrid ran into after that. From what the Ragged Holy Man could see, Enkrid seemed to be on fairly close terms with the innkeeper at the center of the city.

"What brings you down this way, Commander? If you haven't eaten, stay for a bowl."

The innkeeper's name was Allen. His dream was to beat Vanessa's Pumpkin Soup on taste alone, and lately he had been serving chicken soup, sold under a banner that said his grandmother had made it for him every time he caught a cold.

Business was going quite well because of it.

Not as well as Vanessa's inn with its pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie and pumpkin juice, but there was nothing to complain about in the current situation.

With the Safe Road driving trade and Lockfried's new commercial city up and running, Border Guard had no shortage of supplies.

Allen was reaping the benefits.

'And now there's the farming in Greenfield on top of everything.'

The Ragged Holy Man was not without his own experience and observations. Even with eyes that didn't see well, being this close, and inside the circle of it, made things clearer. He had always said of himself that he tended to notice the smaller currents more than the larger ones.

The politics of a city meant less to him than the lives of the people living inside it.

'Quite flush. Very flush indeed.'

That was how this city looked to him.

The end of the small skirmishes with Azpen had made a real difference too. That alone let them use that wide plain as farmland without Demon Creature interference.

The regular sweeps through the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range to thin out Demon Creatures had mattered as well, and then there was the Stone Road connecting them to the west.

All of it had come back to the city as wealth. But where there is light, there is shadow, a truth the Ragged Holy Man understood better than most.

And that shadow had just poked its head in.

Frogs were a race that regenerated their skin, so a Frog with a scar was a rare sight. A decidedly rough-looking Frog with a white scar across the neck was walking toward them.

Was it looking for a fight? Or had it noticed the jewelry on him and gotten greedy?

It could even be a bounty hunter.

'Or a blade sent by the Holy State?'

It was none of those things.

"Long time," the Frog said, greeting them like an old acquaintance. Enkrid studied the Frog for a moment before speaking.

"...Melon?"

"Maelrun. You've already forgotten my name?"

"Ah, right. Maelrun."

Even having his name mangled, the Frog showed not a flicker of irritation.

To the Ragged Holy Man, that was surprising. To Maelrun, it was perfectly natural.

Pick a fight and Maelrun would die to a single sword stroke. Forgetting a name was the kind of thing that happened. Maelrun was a Frog, and being a Frog, Maelrun was honest about what was wanted.

A decent victory, the feeling of accomplishment, that was enough. Which was why life suited Maelrun fine these days.

Behind Maelrun, a bald man stepped forward, the sort who looked at a glance like he threw his weight around in back alleys.

He had come out of a dim alley nestled between tightly packed buildings, the kind that held shadows even in daylight. Sunlight glinted off his head.

"Commander."

He walked over and addressed Enkrid.

"Gielpin."

Enkrid recognized him right away.

"Why does he remember your name?"

Maelrun muttered. Not that anyone paid him any mind.

"Looking for something, sir?" Gielpin asked.

"No. Just taking a walk."

Gielpin's gaze passed briefly over the Ragged Holy Man. What hung from the old man's body was the kind of thing any pickpocket would covet. But those eyes held no greed. The Ragged Holy Man's eyesight was poor, but his hearing was sharp.

Not sharp enough to use echolocation, but sharp enough to catch whispers from a distance.

And as his hearing had developed, reading people through instinct had become something of a strength.

He had been watching Enkrid, and now he watched Gielpin standing beside him. No trace of malice or greed reached him at all.

The man clearly worked for a criminal guild, or something close to one, years of wandering had given him a nose for that. But Gielpin had no interest in him.

"Everything quiet?" Enkrid asked.

"With Vengeance running the city guard, what trouble could there be?"

Those were his words, but Gielpin did plenty of his own work for the city. The Information Guild that Krais had established was under his care, and keeping incidents from breaking out inside the city was part of that.

As a result, Gielpin had lost weight since the last time, his cheeks noticeably hollow.

The natural outcome of working under Krais.

The pay was not small, though, and Gielpin was satisfied with his life as it was.

None of that was something the Ragged Holy Man could have known. Which was exactly why all of this felt unusual to him.

'Strange. Very strange.'

After wandering through the city for a good while, Enkrid turned toward the barracks where the tents were pitched.

The Ragged Holy Man followed and watched him quietly. Then he said, almost to himself:

"I take care of war orphans. Would it be all right if I built a monastery in this city for that purpose?"

It might have been a difficult request. But for Enkrid, who had recently arranged the relocation of an entire Elf clan, this was nothing.

"Go ahead."

Not a moment's hesitation.

"It'll cost something."

"Weren't you planning to sell what you have on you?"

"Instead of that, couldn't you cover it?"

"Well, fine. You know someone named Krais? Big eyes, face goes sour the moment you ask him for Krona. Go tell him. That should do it."

"What if I'm the type who buys and sells children for a few gold coins?"

"Then why would you be putting up a monastery to care for them? You'd just sell them off. There are already lunatics out there trying to churn out Holy Men and Holy Maidens, after all."

What is this guy? The Ragged Holy Man blinked his white-cataract eyes a few times.

The way he talked showed he could think. There was an edge to it too.

"A lot of people have been hurt by those fools."

"Then do something about it."

"Outside my power."

"Right. Build your monastery."

The conversation bounced back and forth, and the Ragged Holy Man felt a strange satisfaction in it.

Compressed as it was, everything that needed to be said had come through clearly.

What was this?

The Ragged Holy Man had come to see the place Audin had chosen to put down roots. He had known that his adopted son's path was a thorny one and that nothing would change it. He had known Audin was not a boy easily swayed by others. He had known there was a wound somewhere inside him.

That Audin had overcome all of it and still stood where he stood, it would be a lie to say that wasn't a source of pride.

There was one thing that nagged at him, though. Why had Audin not returned to the temple, and stayed here instead?

'Enkrid.'

This man was the answer. The Holy Man had spent time here and heard no small number of stories.

From Seiki, the story of the person who had saved her.

From others, the story of a man who let no single day go to waste.

From still others, the story of a knight who cried out War's End and cut down demons.

The Ragged Holy Man did not know where Enkrid had started, only where he was now. He had assumed the man before him was someone pressing forward with a great purpose in mind. But seeing him in person was different.

He was unlike anyone the Holy Man had ever met.

'What makes him different?'

The way he thinks. The will he carries. The way he walks.

"What do you want?"

All of it condensed into one question. Enkrid did not need long to answer.

"Right now, it's to use my techniques the way water flows."

"What?"

The Ragged Holy Man asked again, not sure he had heard right.

"I've built up a system for myself, and I've only just developed a specialty. I want to go further than that, and I can see what I still need to gain, but since I don't have the talent I have to do things one at a time, so right now, yes, to swing the sword the way water flows, um, saying it out loud I understand even better what I need to do. After the Wave-Blocking Sword comes the flowing sword. Ah, not the Soft and Flowing Sword, Flow as in current. Not an inexhaustible well, but a stream that never stops. That sort of thing."

The Holy Man could not make sense of a single word. In his younger years he had trained his body to a degree, but not to any great level. So he truly understood none of it.

"Huh?"

The Ragged Holy Man asked again.

"This helped. Audin said not to brush you off, that you'd be of help if I had something on my mind. He was right."

Enkrid kept talking, like a man in a pleasant daze.

"Hm?"

"I suppose there was a reason I've been teaching Seiki."

"Hmm?"

By now they had reached the barracks. Enkrid drew his sword on the spot. There was no point trying to speak to him further, it was plain to see he had sunk into his own world.

The old man the world called the Ragged Holy Man, who had come to see the home Audin had made and planned to build a monastery for orphans here and had draped himself in valuables to donate for that purpose, stood where he was and watched Enkrid train. A moment later, Audin came over.

"How was the walk?"

The Ragged Holy Man paused before answering.

"Why is he like that?"

"Did something happen?"

"He said something about a stream, then started swinging his sword."

"Ah. That's normal for him."

"That's normal?"

"Yes, it is."

The Holy Man had wandered the world all his life, worn down by people, meeting people, saving people. And now a small truth settled into him.

'Madman.'

Only now did he truly feel in his bones why the knight order had the name it did.

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