WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 670: Once Seen, Never Forgotten, So I Paint It

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"By a hair."

The man answered, and Rem smiled lazily. "Want me to lop that head off if you try again? By a hair, he says."

The man went quiet. Setting aside who had won or lost, he had clearly taken a beating. The way he stood showed something off in how his weight sat between both legs, and with dried blood crusting on his skull, there was no need for a closer look.

His fighting spirit was not broken just because he had stopped talking back. He glared at Rem.

"Want me to gouge your eyes out?"

Rem kept hammering away, but it was all talk.

A faint killing intent drifted between them, though compared to what usually passed between Rem and Jaxon, or Rem and Ragna, this was practically charming.

Enkrid ignored the two of them and tracked the pair of shadows darting back and forth beyond Rem.

One of them is Audin.

The other was a man he had never seen before. Short blond hair whipping around as he swung his sword, and the skill behind it was no ordinary thing.

He swung to build pressure, and through that pressure he played the Numbers Game.

Heavy Sword Style and Correct Sword mixed together.

He pulled out what he needed when he needed it. Measured against the system Enkrid had built in his head, this was close to high-level. Enkrid put himself in the swordsman's place and tried to read his intent.

He's leaving gaps on purpose.

The man wanted Audin to close the distance. Why? Because he was confident he could handle whatever came next. So what had he prepared? That part, Enkrid could not tell.

But it would be something close to a secret technique. The kind a person did not show off freely in front of others.

Enkrid had faced countless wanderers over the years. Among them were plenty who were confident in their skill, and plenty who traded only on reputation.

A few of them shared something in common: not one was willing to show their techniques easily.

But doesn't that mean throwing away every chance to grow?

That was how Enkrid saw it.

Without testing your limits and pushing past them, there was no next step. It was a truth he had learned through his body.

The man in front of him was the same type. If he had not meant to be baited, there was no reason to keep leaving those gaps.

Audin took the provocation. He closed the space until they were nearly arm's length apart. A bad distance for swinging a sword, a good one for working with your hands.

The fight ended in an instant. The man brought his right hand down in a cut while his left shot upward.

If neither hand had held a weapon, it would have looked like someone crossing signal flags. But naturally, his left hand was already holding something. A hidden weapon.

A second sword.

A concealed blade. The breastplate was split into upper and lower halves, and as the left hand passed inside the armor, a palm-length curved dagger shot out into that hand.

A kris. The hand gripping it drove straight up.

Audin moved as though he had been waiting for exactly that. He brought both hands together, spread his fingers loosely to let the blade pass between them, then clamped down and pressed. He did not stop there. He twisted his hips and pulled himself tighter against his opponent.

The right-hand blade lost its target, the sword-hand striking Audin's shoulder instead, and Audin, already that close, used his left foot as a pivot and drove his shoulder and the broad plane of his back into his opponent.

A full body check at a distance where it should have been impossible. Hard to defend against did not begin to cover it.

Bang!

A crash rang out between them and the man stumbled back.

Blood ran from between Audin's middle and ring fingers on both hands, and a section of the man's breastplate was caved in.

"Didn't work."

There was excitement and anticipation in his voice, not a trace of disappointment that his technique had been stopped.

He had revealed a secret move and shrugged it off. His focus was entirely on the fight in front of him.

Enkrid felt a pull toward this person even though the man had done nothing in particular to him and they had not exchanged a single word.

"Odinkar, that's enough."

Grida stopped the fight. The man called Odinkar turned his head. Fighting spirit still burned in him, but his manner said he trusted Audin not to take advantage of the opening.

A spar was just a spar.

"What a shame."

He was the same as Grida. These were people who had come with a purpose other than killing or being killed.

Sure enough, Grida spoke.

"Might as well do a proper introduction. I'm Grida Zaun, that's Odinkar Zaun, and this is Magroon Zaun. We come from the Zaun family."

Every eye turned toward the three of them.

Zaun. The place Ragna had been born.

And Grida Zaun, having found the person she had come here for, pointed straight at him.

"Ragna, we came to bring you back. Your hair color changed."

She even raised a finger to point.

Every eye followed that finger.

"Hm?"

Ruagarne tilted her head first. The brown-haired man standing where that finger pointed did not even bother turning to look behind him.

He knew without using his eyes that there was no one else around him.

So it was natural and entirely reasonable for Jaxon to show confusion while staring at the finger aimed at him. Jaxon let his face say what he thought.

"...?"

Speaking with nothing but an expression was a talent in its own right. Jaxon's face said: what are you talking about?

Even so, Grida pressed on with a gentle smile, her voice completely certain.

"Playing dumb? I'm Grida, who never forgets a face once she's seen it."

The entire Border Guard contingent had gone quiet, silently wondering what was happening.

"Is it him? Doesn't look right to me."

Odinkar asked. He knew Ragna. That was not him. His attention had already drifted elsewhere anyway, his desire to press Audin again plainly obvious. Even after sheathing his sword, his eyes stayed locked on Audin.

"I think my opponent might have been the strongest in the entire knight order. I need time. Time."

Magroon had no interest at all. Ragna or no Ragna, it was none of his concern. He was simply amazed that people like this existed outside the family. The technique of the barbarian who had knocked him flat had left him genuinely impressed, and all he could think about was studying it.

He wanted to find a quiet corner somewhere and bury himself in sword research.

I lost.

The only way through defeat was to study it.

That was how Magroon saw it.

"It's him. Ragna Zaun. The head of the family is calling for you."

Grida said it again. Enkrid felt no bolt-of-lightning shock, but something was starting to make sense.

There were people who looked at someone and still could not properly remember their face. Grida was that kind of person.

Jaxon had no idea what to say. He had never experienced anything like this.

"Excuse me? Ragna went to see Aetri about sharpening his blade."

Krais cut in from the side.

"Oh?"

Grida tilted her head. To Enkrid, she did not seem like someone who bothered hiding her thoughts.

She had described Ragna herself as blond with red eyes. How could she still mix up someone's face?

He did not know the logic behind that and did not want to. But one thing was clear.

Just as Ragna could not find his way around, this woman could not remember faces.

So she had forgotten his face too.

It was the first time in Enkrid's life that a woman had looked at him once and already forgotten him.

He was not particularly bothered, but that was still a fact.

"That's not him."

Enkrid stepped in to sort it out. Grida pushed back a few more times, then finally accepted it.

"Even I make mistakes sometimes."

That one line was enough. Enkrid was certain this woman was Ragna's sister.

* * *

"He insisted on returning from the market alone, so we've lost track of his current location."

The soldier who had accompanied him had argued against it, but if anyone could be stopped, it was not Ragna. Somewhere between the market and the barracks, he had drifted off, and there was no telling where.

Krais had just delivered this grim piece of news to the people who had come looking for Ragna. Their purpose was Ragna, so they needed to hand him over, and this was what asking around had turned up.

"Ragna was always hopeless at finding his way, even as a kid."

Grida said it with a nod, so unfazed that finding him did not seem particularly urgent. The other two were completely indifferent.

One of them, Odinkar, had now expanded his attention to others beyond Audin. He was quietly spreading his fighting spirit toward Enkrid as well. The other one, the moment Krais finished speaking, asked:

"I'd like to stay somewhere quiet and out of the way for a bit. Would that be possible?"

Neither of the other two stopped him. They were the kind of people who each only said what they wanted to say.

"What are these people even doing here?"

Rem said what everyone was thinking. Krais almost reflexively started to say "My thoughts exactly" and then shut his mouth.

Jaxon crossed his arms and folded all three of them into his field of awareness.

His intent to cut or stab them if things went wrong was plain. These three clearly knew it and were completely unfazed.

Which was, frankly, baffling.

Zaun. Those who knew, knew the family.

For generations in the north, the family had produced a handful of knights, and those knights were called seekers of the sword. Among wandering mercenaries and adventurers, there were those who had trained under the Zaun family. It might have been for similar reasons that Barnaas, the Beastfolk general of Azpen who had led wars, had taken one look at Ragna and recognized what he was.

Though since Barnaas had picked him out purely on talent, the reality might simply have been a lucky guess.

Enkrid had wandered the continent as a mercenary and guide, but back then his skill had been pitiful. After that, he had spent his time only at Border Guard. To him, the name Zaun meant only the place Ragna had been born and raised.

Which made it strange to think that three people this capable with a blade all belonged to one family.

He would understand if it were a knight order. If they were from the Empire, he could nod along easily. If they were from the Southern Great Power, that too would seem natural enough.

But one family was a different matter. At the end of it, these were people connected by blood.

How is this possible? Bloodline? The power of lineage?

He had heard that those who carried the blood of ancient royal families were born with exceptional gifts. Abilities like moving objects with thought alone, or reading other people's minds.

He had also heard that the first magic had originated from bloodlines. Most of that had come from Esther.

Is there a bloodline that makes someone skilled with a sword? A bloodline for becoming a knight? Is talent fixed at birth? Is fate, not effort, the only answer?

Was there an ancient kingdom somewhere, or a bloodline that had continued on in secret until now?

That's not it.

Even if that were the truth, Enkrid would prove it wrong with his own body. Separate from the Knight of War's End, it was one of the things he wanted. To prove that talent alone was not the answer.

Where he stood right now, he could not call himself proof of that.

I repeat today.

A curse, but also a blessing. He was not dismissing what he had gained from it, but he did not want to say this way was the only path to surpassing talent.

Don't narrow your thinking.

A fight, an idea, it would all look different depending on the angle you approached it from.

"Enki, you see the battlefield too narrowly."

He could almost hear Ruagarne's voice. Using her teaching as a foundation, he tried to broaden the base of his thinking.

And when he did, one of the things he had come to understand through his body surfaced on its own.

A sloppy method of training, a shortcut, only ever produced something half-finished.

Is there really that much difference between the chimera knight Count Molsen built and a knight trained in Azpen or the holy city of Legion?

Reshaping a body to resemble a knight's, or getting drunk on omnipotence, did not make anyone a knight. Using Will did not make someone a knight either.

You had to grope forward yourself. Only then did it mean anything.

Others could influence what you chose to commit to, but if you lived according to what others decided for you, the bud of Will could never become a Flower.

So what was the reason these three had reached the level they showed? They had broken out of the bud themselves. Something beyond talent alone would have been necessary. What was it?

"We come from the Zaun family. Some of you probably don't know much about us, but think of it as a family where people who handle swords gather."

Grida introduced herself in her own way, and Krais added what he knew from Enkrid's side.

Nothing far from the rumors already floating around.

A tradition passed down through generations?

What was tradition?

A philosophy carried forward. A family bearing the name Zaun would have something passed down through it.

Rem was saying these people were strange, and Odinkar Zaun kept provoking, and Jaxon's nerves were beginning to fray.

"An established system."

Enkrid muttered. His voice came out loud enough that everyone looked over. That was the reason the Zaun family had produced knights generation after generation.

In other words, they were people who had walked the road Enkrid still had to walk.

Ruagarne understood it first.

"Of course. That makes sense."

She had never met anyone from the Zaun family before either. They were people hidden behind a fog of rumor.

But seeing them in person made it clear. These three came from the same family, and all three were knights.

It could not have happened without a proper system in place.

What of it, though. Rem said what he had to say.

"Are we kicking these bastards out?"

The take-it-or-leave-it attitude made Odinkar bare his canines. That's a challenge. The fighting spirit said so. Rem could not hold back and put his hand on his axe, and Jaxon gripped a dagger where no one could see.

Krais felt the shift in the air on his skin. His unease swung wildly.

That directionally-impaired bastard.

He cursed Ragna under his breath and sent a look toward Enkrid, but the commander showed no sign of stepping in.

Audin might have helped, but today Audin looked like a bear beastfolk ready to tear someone in two.

Krais thought for a moment.

If they killed those three here, what good would come of it? None.

Then just let it play out? He wrestled with it briefly, then displayed his wisdom.

"I'm leaving."

Look the other way. They could handle it themselves. The Madman Knights were beyond his control anyway. For the sake of his own sanity, he turned and walked away.

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