A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 678

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 678: Well-Wishes and Respect

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"Zaun is to the north. Face the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range head-on, then head northeast and you'll find a small cave. Pass through it and you'll come out at the 'Hill of the Stars.' From there, swing wide to the east and keep going. You'll arrive eventually. It's near Imperial territory."

Magroon said it with a perfectly healthy face, as though he hadn't coughed up blood not long ago. Enkrid had wandered the continent working as a guide once. His sense for roads was, compared to Ragna, on par with the continent's greatest knight. Compared to an ordinary guide, it was just enough to keep himself fed.

Even with that level of sense, Magroon's description was enough to paint a rough picture.

The route was not as complicated as he'd expected. That naturally led to a thought.

'So Zaun being unknown isn't because it's hard to find.'

Honestly, the city and village where Enkrid himself had been born and raised were better hidden than Zaun.

'They didn't hide the road. They just never built up a reputation.'

Zaun did not push forward or put their name out front. There was not a trace of any desire to spread the Zaun name wide or make it known.

'Well, there could have been someone who wanted to. Someone must have stopped it.'

His thoughts branched out on their own. Sometimes his mind would sketch out the ripples, the shape, and the mechanics of a single event. Krais had once looked at Enkrid and called it a genuinely remarkable talent.

Seeing the front of a picture and deducing what was painted on the back, that was a real talent.

Enkrid pressed on with a question.

'Why stop it?'

If he asked Krais or Abnaier that, an answer would come quickly. Even without close knowledge of the details, both of them would have guessed to some degree what direction the Zaun family was moving in.

And right now, it was not hard for Enkrid to guess the reason either.

"Imperial territory?"

He asked while putting a sweet potato in his mouth, one that had been shipped in from Azpen and roasted in the oven.

It broke apart exactly as his molars moved. Just a small resistance, nothing more, and then sweetness and a warm, nutty scent spread through his mouth.

Crunch. He ate it alongside pickled radish, and two flavors came together in his mouth in something close to a cheer. It was good.

"I said near. Zaun is close to Imperial territory, but it's a separate independent city."

The answer was right there in what Magroon was saying. Magroon had peeled a sweet potato and put it in his mouth as well.

Watching him blow on it to cool it down as he ate, it was hard to believe this was the same person who had collapsed vomiting blood a few days ago.

And that very morning he had even sparred with Enkrid. He said he was fine on the outside, so Enkrid had no choice but to take his word for it. That was Ann's area, not his own, and Ann had nodded and said he was okay now.

'An independent city.'

There was a group nearby with that kind of strength. If Enkrid himself were a ruler, how would he see them?

'A threat.'

Or an opportunity.

He would either absorb them or eliminate them. But that had not happened. The Empire had left them alone.

Zaun was not a group in hiding. Those who knew of them knew their existence and their location.

'And still they left them alone.'

Because they had created a reason that made leaving them alone the only real option.

To borrow an analogy from strategic thinking, it was like not giving your opponent a reason to cut you down.

'And they would have made it clear that trying would cost more than a scratch.'

Wiping them out would require pouring the nation's full strength into it. You would lose at least one arm to eliminate them. So they were left alone.

A memory surfaced, something Crang had said once.

"The Empire has an interesting number of shields, actually. On the side that borders the central continent, the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range acts as a shield. To the west, the Great Forest where the King of Magic Beasts supposedly lives is positioned like a shield. And on the route that goes around to the east, there's a shield there too. What that shield is, now..."

He had lost interest and never heard the end of it, but he had a feeling he knew what that eastern shield was.

'Zaun.'

They would be one of those shields.

Grida dragged a chair over and sat closer, then continued.

"They say they have nothing to do with the Empire, but people from the family who can't fit in sometimes become Imperial knights, so you can't say there's no connection at all. To be precise, the relationship is cordial. That's what it is. And it's a relationship where they can't afford to be anything less."

What happened when you had poor relations with a neighboring nation?

Naurillia and Azpen were a very good example of exactly what came of that.

You fought, and then you fought again, endlessly.

"You'll ride on horseback for a while, then eventually you'll have to go on foot."

Magroon finished. Enkrid nodded.

He let his gaze drift to one side. The door to the knight order's dining hall was wide enough for five of Audin standing side by side to walk through at once.

To borrow Krais's words, ingredients had to come and go easily, so the door needed to be big.

Well, knights didn't just eat a little. They ate like they were out of their minds.

There were fewer than ten of them, but the provisions going in were at company level or more. That was part of why there was a separate thing called field rations for wartime use.

Through that wide door, Ragna was visible outside. Ropord stood beside him.

Enkrid cleared away what was left of breakfast and listened to the two of them talking.

He wasn't exactly eavesdropping. It carried clearly without him trying.

"Ropord, don't stick only to efficient methods."

Both of them held wooden swords, not live blades. Ragna spoke and swung what he had in hand.

When a knight swung it, even a rotten branch could be lethal, not just a wooden sword. Someone who could shatter a log with bare fists could manage anything.

Ragna raised the wooden sword toward the sky. The roof position. From there he brought it down in a breaking cut, and at the point where it came level with the ground, he shifted the direction of the force. In terms of movement, he had crossed his feet and thrust.

Easy to say, but it was a technique that required physical control at the level of the Beastfolk.

On top of that, Enkrid read the meaning carried inside the technique.

'Vallen's mercenary sword style.'

Deceive to gain advantage. That was what Vallen's mercenary sword style pursued. The path of the swordsmanship Ragna had just demonstrated fit that exactly.

Ropord watched the suddenly changed arc of the blade and moved to meet it with his own sword. That Ropord was no small talent was clear enough.

He barely managed to block the thrust. The crack of two wooden swords clashing rang out sharply, and the two blades met in the air and locked together.

'Bind.'

A technique that catches and winds the opponent's weapon.

Ragna pressed the bound swords and crossed his feet again, stepping forward to close the distance.

For anyone facing him directly, it would have been a disorienting, irregular attack.

With the Bind still in place, Ragna pushed the locked blade and tapped Ropord's cheek lightly with the sword hand.

Tap.

No real impact. More precisely, no impact remained in the body, though something must have landed in the mind.

That easily? Not overpowered in strength or speed, just couldn't read the move? Why?

Ropord's head must have been spinning. Enkrid was thinking exactly that while watching when Ragna finished what he was saying to Ropord.

"Don't put limits on your movements."

Exactly the words needed right now. Ropord's eyes lit up. He was pushing past a ceiling. Anyone watching could see it.

One step a day, or half a step, but steady. Ragna was telling him what he needed most right now.

And it did not end there.

The man standing out there seemed to have forgotten every trace of his usual laziness.

"Next I'll show you how to squeeze everything out of your muscles in one instant. Heavy Sword Style, Rotational Slash."

The pace was fast enough that Ropord could barely keep up. The kind of thing a lazy man would never do.

"He's changed so much."

Grida said it watching the scene. The thought behind it was probably that Enkrid, sitting right here, had influenced him into this. That was the impression that rose in Grida's mind.

This man had that kind of effect on the people around him.

Being near him could change you.

Even Grida, in just the past few months, had come to genuinely enjoy the work of forging the body.

Enkrid had a gift for making people want to move and enjoy it just by watching him.

"Didn't he say he left because he was tired of the sword?"

Magroon added his own words. He glanced at Enkrid. The person who had turned a genius disillusioned with everything into this was sitting right beside him.

How had he done it? Changed someone like that? Though Magroon had more or less figured it out. A person this serious about training and about life was rare. No, Magroon had never seen one before.

That sincerity must be the reason for a change like this. That was the conclusion Magroon settled on.

While the two of them were still turning it over, Enkrid opened his mouth.

"What's he doing."

Thoroughly startled.

Both Grida and Magroon turned to look at Enkrid.

Why are you surprised too? That was what their eyes said. Enkrid read those looks and answered.

"No idea. Watching him like this is almost frightening."

And honestly, this was not the kind of thing you could have expected from Ragna.

The two who had come from Zaun were staring at him, baffled.

After finishing the sword lesson, Ragna wiped his sweat with a towel and walked into the dining hall.

It really did not suit him. Sweating, throwing himself into training, spending his free time teaching Ropord.

And it was not only Ropord.

On his way in, when he crossed paths with a Squire and Clemen, who had stumbled and fallen, Ragna said to her:

"Try holding the sword."

"...Pardon?"

Clemen knew who Ragna was. He had been in and out of the knight order's lodging so often it would have been hard not to know him. Still, she was clearly flustered.

Honestly, this was the first time she had actually spoken with Ragna. Normally he was the type who wouldn't even bother answering when called, dismissing it as too much trouble.

Clemen instinctively did as she was told and drew the sword.

"Practice being able to change your grip at any moment. Even so, hold it tight enough that you won't drop it."

Short, but useful advice.

Clemen gave a military salute with a dazed expression.

Her face asked: why is he suddenly doing this?

Ragna sat down to eat and addressed the three who had been watching him.

"What remains in the place one leaves behind. That is worth thinking about."

Whether he had swallowed the philosopher's stone or drunk a philosopher's blood, Ragna was acting wise in a way that was entirely unlike him.

And the sight of it was deeply irritating. It was like Rem pretending to be well-behaved, or Jaxon putting on a bright face and announcing that the world was beautiful.

Enkrid reflexively swung his water cup. The small amount of water in it scattered and settled over Ragna's hair.

Enkrid felt that whatever had taken hold of Ragna needed to be driven out.

He had heard from Rem that this kind of exorcism worked sometimes. So he said it with full sincerity.

"Begone, Evil Spirit."

A short silence settled over the dining hall. A trainee soldier coming out with another dish stepped back the way they had come, apparently deciding to unsee and unhear everything just witnessed.

"What are you doing."

Ragna did not get angry. Did not argue. He just looked at Enkrid without expression and spoke. That gaze got under Enkrid's skin.

It was the look you gave a child who had not grown up yet.

With a little more stretch, it looked like the way Rem looked at people.

"When someone changes all of a sudden..."

Goaded into it, Enkrid pushed back.

"Yes, they're probably dying."

Ragna returned even that. After the short exchange, Enkrid felt defeated.

'Have you actually grown?'

No pretending not to understand, just holding that calm composure. Behind Ragna, Enkrid could almost picture a knowing elder clicking their tongue and muttering, 'you know full well.'

"Magroon, even anyone needs to be serious sometimes."

Magroon, who had been debating swordsmanship with Enkrid in complete seriousness all this time, quietly stepped away.

This bastard.

Enkrid looked at him, and then Grida spoke.

"You can't drive out an Evil Spirit that way. You'd need to cut it with an enchanted sword, or something similar. Not plain water."

He hadn't done it because he thought it would work. He swallowed what he'd been about to say. He had to.

Enkrid figured that if he offered anything resembling an excuse here, he would lose even more ground.

"Stop tormenting my fiancé, all three of you Evil Spirits."

Sinar walked in just then and said it. With elven hearing, she had already caught the whole conversation from outside.

Ragna, appearing entirely unbothered by all of it, simply nodded with those deep-lake eyes of his and said he understood.

Enkrid couldn't very well pick a fight with Ragna over the change he had seen. He genuinely could not figure out what had gotten into him.

Not that there was anything to say about it here anyway.

When there is a reason, people change. Enkrid had simply been reminded of how the world worked.

"Right. Whatever it is, it's better than being lazy."

That was about all he could say, so he said it, then stood up and moved to go find Krais.

He'd heard Krais was away again and had watched Krais's eyes go sharp as a triangle. There were things to take care of before leaving.

He was absolutely not running away from the table right now.

"Retreat is a sound tactic. I'll hold them here. Go, my fiancé."

Sinar took a solemn stance and blocked the way behind Enkrid.

Two days passed. He wrapped up estate matters in rough order.

"Come back without any trouble."

Krais cheerfully put up the Krona and the horses.

Word was that horse breeding at Greenfield had been a great success, and the horses brought now showed it, their manes gleaming, their eyes sharp and clear.

"Right then."

Ann had spent those few days learning to ride in a hurry, and Enkrid set off with the three from the Zaun family, Ragna, and Ann.

"Please just leave that bastard behind on the way back."

Rem sent them off with warm words full of concern for their safe return. Ragna heard the fond farewell directed his way and looked steadily back at Rem.

Those deep-lake eyes that had been showing up often lately.

"What? You want to fight?"

Rem reacted, but Ragna answered with words instead of killing intent.

"Rem, I respect the life of a Barbarian. You had to live through struggle like that. Without it, you wouldn't have survived."

Ragna spoke, then turned around.

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

The horse carrying him left the training ground and moved on.

"...Did he take a hard hit to the head?"

Even Rem was thrown off.

"Not there."

Ann rode after Ragna.

Curiously, the horse Ragna rode, despite being exceptionally well-trained, moved however it wanted.