WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 662: An Ordinary Day Like Any Other

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Enkrid knew that swinging a sword a few times would not suddenly summon some great revelation.

So he would move forward one step at a time. For now, the first thing was a name.

Let's call it Flow.

The foundation would be Aoara's linking-sword technique, and beyond that?

Natural in any moment.

The meaning was the same as a river that never stops, always running.

The way to realize it was to swing the sword as naturally as breathing.

And the method of training?

He hit a wall there. As always, he had reached the limit of his talent, but that only made him glad.

Enkrid was the kind of lunatic who felt joy at walls even when he could not see them, simply because he knew he could cross them. Now the wall was visible, close enough to touch. And this was only the beginning. He had already seen what lay beyond it. Every one of his companions had walked that path ahead of him.

It was not a change in quantity. It was a change in quality.

The thought struck him fresh. Goosebumps rose across his whole body, a sharp thrill struck his heart and traveled all the way up to his head, and pure elation poured out of him without restraint.

Oh.

This was going to be fun enough to drive him out of his mind.

Not that any clear path had appeared just yet, and all he could actually do right now was swing his sword. So that was what he did. He swung it, straight and dumb and relentless.

He only knew the one thing, and he was only doing that one thing, and still the smile never left his face. He swung his sword like a boy falling in love for the first time.

"Is he out of his mind?" the Ragged Holy Man asked from the side, genuine concern threaded through the words.

Why had the man suddenly started muttering to himself and then walked out to swing a sword with that grin on his face?

What is this. That's frightening.

Something along those lines would not have been out of place.

Enkrid could not hear the Ragged Holy Man's murmuring at all, but everyone else nodded along to it.

"Well, stating the obvious. That one's always been cracked."

"He does wander back eventually, so don't be too alarmed."

"It's fine. Just a phase."

Rem, Ragna, and Audin all heard and replied in turn. The Ragged Holy Man clicked his tongue. He could not let it go without saying something to them as well.

"You three are the last ones who should be saying that."

He had only met Enkrid recently, but he had watched Rem and Ragna for years. He had even seen the change in his foster son. That these people, who had once been ready to kill each other, had somehow ended up getting along and playing nice was baffling to witness.

Why was that possible? He knew. It was because of that lunatic out front, smiling to himself and swinging his sword.

Right. A center of gravity. That's what it is.

Everything revolved around that one person. The knight order, the city, the people.

Was it impressive? Yes. And seeing that kind of lunatic at the center, it made sense that such a collection of people would somehow hold together.

As he watched the crazed swordsman, all sorts of thoughts churned through the Ragged Holy Man's mind.

Mixed in among them was regret. Old grief.

What if someone like that had existed when he was young? A center that could hold even someone like Overdier, could hold even himself?

No, what if it had been someone everyone acknowledged?

There had been one person, one genuinely exceptional friend. He could put weight behind his words as if blessed by a god, and the divine nature and talent in him had been no less than Audin's is now.

At times he had seemed like a younger brother, at other times like an older one. He knew how to carry authority, and he knew how to care for people. Dignity, leadership, and charm, all of it in one person.

And his ambition had been equal to his ability.

Would things have been different if they had protected him when he became Pope?

The Ragged Holy Man already knew the answer.

Nothing would have changed.

So only sorrow remained.

In the end, it was Legion that drove him away. Legion that made him a traitor.

Legion's greatest genius lost his family, lost the person he loved, and left for the Cursed Ground with revenge on his mind.

He did not shed bitter tears. He did not cry out. Calmly, without a word, he denied everything he had been and walked away.

"If this is the will of god, then I will refuse it."

That was the last thing he said.

What a fool.

He had been too extraordinary, too capable for a seat meant to embrace all believers. Envy was inevitable. There were many who wanted to drag him down.

After that, Holy Knight Overdier had erased his own opinions and sworn to follow whatever the next Pope desired.

Grief tore through his chest, and in its wake something became clear.

He didn't need to be able to use divine power. He needed to be someone who could embrace others. Someone who knew how to sacrifice.

That was what it took to earn universal recognition.

The Holy Knights could handle the fighting, and those who could use divine power could use it. That was enough.

You did not have to get along with everyone, but you had to be recognized for your character, not your ability.

Ha.

The Ragged Holy Man knew himself well. He was not the right person for the Pope's seat. He had no confidence in carrying that responsibility, and stopping a sick child from dying in front of his eyes suited him far better.

The Holy City needed someone made of different stuff.

And here, at the Border Guard, they needed someone like that one out there.

Not crushing everyone from above. Not commanding them. Not ruling them.

He is not a king.

The vessel served a different purpose, that was the right way to say it.

"His dream is to be a knight, yes?" he said, turning toward Audin as if asking, though he already knew the answer. He had already heard it.

To be precise, the kind of knight who only appeared in a traveling bard's songs.

He could not bring himself to mock that. Not because of what the man was now, but because he himself had lived something similar.

And watching the man walk this city, he understood. Enkrid was someone who swung his sword to protect the people at his back.

That was all. And that single thing had brought him to this point. Which was exactly what made him a lunatic.

"What a preposterous man."

At the end of that brief reflection, the Ragged Holy Man dropped to his knees right where he stood and began to pray.

He reflected on past wrongs and old grief, and with both hands clasped together, earnestly wished that light might fall on that lunatic's road ahead as he called on his god.

"That doesn't make the things you said disappear, you know. I don't care who someone is, noble or not."

Right beside him, Rem slid a hand onto his axe. Hadn't that man just crossed a line a moment ago? Hadn't he basically called that lunatic and the rest of them all the same kind of people?

Technically he had said they were the last ones who should be saying it, but Rem had quick instincts, and to him it sounded like being called the same breed of lunatic.

Which was the same as asking for a fight.

The west had customs of respecting elders, but that old man was not from the west, so it made no difference.

"He's not wrong, is he, my barbarian brother?" Audin said, trying to step between them.

"The wildcat always takes the side of the alley cat."

Rem went beyond resting his hand on the axe and actually grabbed it. The Inherited weapon responded to the warmth of his palm.

He had no real intention of using it, but a threat was another matter.

"Granted, you are the last ones who should be saying it."

In the middle of it all, Ragna added one more line, and that nearly started the fight right there. He had said it as though it had nothing to do with himself.

"This directionally-impaired bastard really has no clue. That includes you, you lazy bastard."

Rem said it and drew the axe in the same motion, driving it straight down with a sharp snap of the wrist.

It looked as though the axe had grown from his arm, body and weapon moving as one.

Ragna drew his sword to block it as a matter of course, whipping out a greatsword like it was a dagger and using the half-drawn blade to knock the axe aside.

Clang!

Sparks flew, and fire lit up behind the eyes of two savage beasts.

"These lunatic brothers of mine."

Audin, worried his foster father might get hurt, shoved between them. He threw a fist wrapped in divine power, and for a moment his hand looked as though a clump of golden sand had formed around it.

Rem saw it coming and leapt sideways. Ragna raised his sword upright like a shield and stepped back.

All three spun across the battered training ground and went at each other.

On one side, Enkrid muttered to himself and kept swinging his sword. Ropord and Fell had been watching him, shaking their heads, when their eyes met, and they immediately started fighting too.

"What are you looking at?"

"Wasn't looking at those rotten eyes of yours."

"Looks like you've got one eye you don't need, so let's pull it out today."

That was roughly how the conversation went.

Ruagarne spotted them a moment later and seemed to feel the urge to join in, so she grabbed Teresa.

"Half-blood Giant, if you've improved at all, want to play?"

"Not a bad suggestion, sister."

The resonance in Teresa's low, distinctive voice made it land even sharper than before.

A voice that reached right into the chest.

And then there was the Ragged Holy Man, kneeling to one side with jewels covering him head to toe, offering his prayer. It was a day like any other.

Several more days passed like that.

It was the day after Ropord handed off the basic training instructor role to a Squire named Clemen, who had taken a fall.

"Am I really the one doing this?"

"Yes. You."

Clemen was officially a Squire of the Madman Knights.

Enkrid had taught her a few times himself, and he knew exactly how much venom she had in her.

He liked that venom quite a bit, as it happened.

Either way, Ropord, Fell, and everyone else had canceled every other schedule. All of it at Enkrid's request.

The day of the promise, you could call it.

Enkrid woke early and took his time warming up.

Good.

Spring had fully arrived, but the early mornings were still cold. The comfortable chill suited him. He had only been moving a little while before the sweat started, and he liked that too, liked the feeling of his body heating up.

Audin had come out before sunrise and begun training beside him with the Isolation Technique, and not long after the sun rose, Ropord and Fell appeared.

Enkrid did not believe that forcing something would make it work if it would not. Instead he trained steadily, and the rest of his tasks moved forward one by one.

He had established a framework. He had worked through the exercise of sorting temperaments in his head, that sort of thing.

And right now, in front of him, were two people with exactly opposing temperaments. Ropord and Fell.

Excellent test subjects.

"Do you want to become knights?"

Enkrid asked, though the question barely needed asking. Both Ropord and Fell trained every single day with a kind of stubborn, brainless intensity.

What else would the reason be?

"Does it even need saying?"

Fell answered first. Ropord gave a single, solid nod.

"Yes."

Enkrid had asked himself the same question many times on the road here.

Could the framework he had built open the path to knighthood?

Now was the time to find out.

He did not know it, but this was a road that other fighting forces had each walked once before. Given the effect a knight could have on the tide of battle, it would have been strange not to try.

Naurillia had naturally wanted to do something similar, but between Count Molsen, the Cultists, and the bandit gangs piling on from every direction, things had gotten tangled beyond recovery and they had never even managed the attempt.

These days, though, it felt like more than just a pause to breathe. It felt like a brief peace had arrived.

"Looks like the Cultists really were wiped out. The ones who used to operate in scattered groups have gone quiet, and the number of Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts has dropped compared to before," Krais said, surveying the state of the continent. Then he added, "If life just stayed like this, I'd have no complaints."

Krais was also part of a generation that had grown up seeing only battlefields and the Cursed Ground. A peace like this would feel foreign to them.

They called it a peace built by the sword, and yet there was a part of it they had made with their own hands, and still it felt that way.

Circumstances like these were exactly when it was worth putting effort into cultivation. Krais had predicted this a few steps ahead and invested in developing his troops, had he not?

Of course, he had not expected the Cultists to be wiped out this cleanly.

In an era where the quality of a force mattered more than its size on the battlefield, knight cultivation was naturally what every fighting faction put the most heat into.

Ropord and Fell showed a quiet tension, and Enkrid, along with Rem and Audin and the others, arranged themselves around the two.

From a distance, it looked strangely as though the two had been placed at the center and surrounded.

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