WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 688: We've Met Before

= = =

Enkrid had worked as both a guide and a bounty hunter before. That was the period when he would do anything to earn Krona.

It had never been half-hearted work, though. Reading a dirt path for footprints and broken branches to find direction was nothing to him.

Especially when someone had deliberately snapped branches upward to mark the way. Grida must have done that along the route.

Running forward naturally bent branches down or forward, not up. Branches pointing skyward meant an intentional hand.

At regular intervals, one every thirty paces by an adult man's stride, snapped branches pointed the way. A skilled guide's quiet consideration for the ones left behind.

Chasing them was easy. That the three ahead moved slower than he did alone was unavoidable. Ragna was carrying Ann on his back, which limited him.

Still, Enkrid wondered what had happened to the group in front.

Was there another trap waiting?

He thought while he ran. Had the sorcerer anticipated they would change their route?

If so, some large-scale sorcery that killed all sense of direction was probably waiting up ahead.

A double barrier?

He did not know. He would find out when he got there. He kept moving, foot after foot. Even so, one part of his mind turned over ideas that had nothing to do with the immediate moment, following the pull of curiosity.

Swordsmanship.

He could not help it. This was Enkrid.

He had only just grasped the concept of calculated swordsmanship. Naturally, the opposite concept, instinctual swordsmanship, had to exist as well.

This is interesting.

Pleasure arrived and ran through him like a current. Something new was near, close enough to feel. It made him so happy he could almost die.

If dying from sheer joy sent him through another loop today, what would the Boatman say?

No actual Boatman had appeared to say anything, but something like a hallucination seemed to whisper all the same.

"...You call that a reason?"

He might get to watch the Boatman look genuinely baffled.

Anyway, splitting the perspective into two, calculation and instinct, made his squadmates' individual strengths stand out sharply.

Audin and Jaxon calculate.

Those two always weighed the situation, considered every variable, held everything in mind at once.

Ragna and Rem follow instinct.

Ragna and Rem did not weigh or deliberate.

Instead, they took everything that came at them and bent it to their advantage.

Adding one more to that list, Sinar was a bit different from the rest.

The elf used a style that harmonized with the flow of a fight and turned an opponent's own strength against them.

Strictly speaking, she was an All-Rounder type.

Sinar compensated for the weaknesses that came with the All-Rounder type by redirecting an opponent's force.

Winter's Gentle Breeze.

Her blade lived in the harmony between calculation and instinct.

The swordsmanship Sinar had shown after finishing the elf village migration stayed vivid in his memory.

He had not fully understood it then. Now he did.

She read part of my movement and matched the rest on instinct.

Looking at it that way, Sinar seemed the most complete. But then Jaxon's words surfaced.

"There are no perfect people in this world. The difference is only in who is sharper."

That was right as well. In the end, the sharper one won. So Sinar's approach and Jaxon's were things to consider later.

Whatever the case, Enkrid knew what he needed to do now.

Instinctual swordsmanship.

He would build it after the calculated kind. Not hiding one specialty, but developing two entirely separate ones.

The thought forming in him right now was also the answer to the question that had grown out of sparring with Audin before they departed.

* * *

"He'll be fine, won't he?"

Magroon adjusted his pace as he spoke. The question was aimed at Enkrid, who had stayed behind.

The night was still long. There was a good chance the ambush was not the last of it. That was how Magroon read things.

Sorcery, magic, Demon Creatures, whatever it was, something would block their path ahead. A natural assumption.

There was no reason for anything to have gone wrong with Enkrid, but he did not know who was behind all this, and that nagging uncertainty pushed the words out.

Ragna answered.

"Better than if I'd stayed. He looked like he was having fun."

When Enkrid was having fun, he fought twice as well. And he was not the kind to let a fight make him forget what he was supposed to be doing.

Magroon had been watching Enkrid for two months.

Right, fair enough.

Only two months, and yet the man already made you nod at a statement like that.

Still, a little worry was reasonable. Even so, no matter how well the Scalers moved and swarmed, that number could not do much against a knight.

That was also true, and beyond that, Enkrid had not looked like any ordinary knight to Magroon either.

"That was the best call in that situation," Grida said.

Even as she said it, she found herself quietly puzzled. Looking back, Enkrid seemed to make the best possible decision every single time, even in brief moments when there was barely time to think.

He seems like someone who has faced the same situation countless times and lived through it alone.

Her guess was not far off, though she did not know it. He had made choices again and again inside repeating days, and on some of those days had been forced to chain decisions together within an almost impossibly short window.

That decisiveness was one of the things Enkrid had earned from living through those loops. Grida did not know that, so she simply took it as natural talent.

Either way, if the whole group had fought together back there, it would have cost more time, not less.

And if the Demon Creatures had split their numbers and sent half to chase this group, they would have been easier to handle.

There was still strength left on their side. Grida was here, and Magroon was here. If Magroon's condition flared up again that would be a headache, but there was no sign of that now.

In other words, choosing without a second's hesitation to stay behind had kept them from losing time and had instead forced a decision onto the Demon Creatures.

With no Colony leader commanding them, the Scaler pack could not have made any tactical move on their own.

Why a special variant showed up here is still a question.

Not one worth chasing down right now.

Everything waits until we reach Zaun.

Once there, most of these questions would be answered.

Someone that close would not be unaware of what was happening in the surrounding area.

And Odinkar had gone on ahead and would have passed the word already.

While she was thinking, Enkrid caught up.

He was not exactly excited, but there was something lightly pleased about his face when he spoke.

"Now it's time to learn instinct."

"...What?"

Grida had been about to say he had worked hard. Instead she asked again. What on earth was this one going on about.

"I can already see the path. The wall isn't high."

Enkrid said it again. At the same time, he quickened his steps and moved up alongside Ragna.

Ragna had clearly heard, but he showed no reaction at all.

"What are you saying, you lunatic."

Grida said it. She was so thrown off that she missed a root sticking up from the ground and clipped it with her toe. She recovered immediately, driving force into the step and snapping part of the root as she walked through it. Knight strength allowed for that.

Creak. Crack.

The root she had all but kicked apart broke and scattered splinters and sap around her.

"Did you catch the poison?"

Magroon turned back to look and asked, slowing his stride.

"No. That's just how she is."

Ragna answered.

Whether Magroon or Grida, both had watched Enkrid for two months, but neither had ever seen this particular brand of madness before.

"Strike on instinct. Not on judgment. On instinct."

Enkrid said what he wanted to say. He was not exactly ignoring Grida or Magroon, and indeed not long after, he said something perfectly sensible.

"The Scalers are all dealt with."

"You're telling us that now?"

"There were four black ones. Do those come up often around here?"

"That's what you're asking now?"

If that was the case, Border Guard and Martai were in for trouble too. A Colony within ten days' ride was no small matter.

And one with special variants, at that.

Ghoul Jerix, the City of Aoara, they had already been through that. Enkrid knew that Demon Creatures capable of training and evolving existed. He knew how dangerous they were.

There had been telekinesis. And one with an armored body.

More precisely, two that used telekinesis and two that had Iron Body.

"No, I've never seen them either."

Magroon gave up waiting for Enkrid to answer his own question and answered it himself. His color was darker than when they had set out. He was worried about what might be waiting at Zaun, and his chest felt tight, as though the fits from his curse or illness were threatening to start up again.

"Strange business. There'll be more ambushes."

Enkrid said it again. In most situations, calling something strange and moving on would not be acceptable, but given what he had already lived through, he could say it and keep going.

If there was nothing to be done about it right now, this was the right way to handle it.

Everyone present had enough sense to understand that, and they all let it pass.

The only thing that mattered here was whether another ambush was coming.

"We think so too."

Grida agreed.

"Even at this pace, it's still more than ten days out."

Magroon as well.

"When we reach Zaun, we'll find out what's been happening nearby. Odinkar should have arrived ahead of us."

Grida continued. Magroon picked up the pace he had let drop.

Running with their senses sharp for any sign of life, they pulled back just slightly on speed. No point charging forward and missing a presence, only to hand over the first strike.

They kept conversation to a minimum too. Talk interfered with identifying friend from foe and catching an ambush early.

They ran through the night in near silence, but no further attack came. Dawn passed and the sun rose, and Magroon stopped. Grida spoke.

"What do you say we push a little harder and run until evening? The freckled one could probably use more sleep too."

"Agreed."

Enkrid said it with a nod.

They ran again. Crossing several ridgelines worked a little sweat out of them, but this was not the time to stop and wash it off.

They found water partway through, refilled what they could, and caught a few animals.

The Pen-Hanil Mountain Range was home to Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts, but ordinary animals lived there too.

A Magic Beast was, by nature, an animal whose blood had been tainted by a Demon Creature. It was not surprising they coexisted.

The great forest far in the distance was said to hold only Magic Beasts, but that place was called another Cursed Ground entirely, which was a different matter.

Regardless, they killed the animals, cooked them roughly over fire, ate until they were no longer empty, drank water, and kept moving.

They had not brought so much as a pinch of salt, so there was no point judging the taste. What could you do. Seasoning was a luxury in a situation like this.

The meat had a gamey smell, but being able to eat at all was something to be grateful for.

Ann woke at intervals and ate and drank during those windows.

"I can't sleep more with medicine. It puts strain on my body."

When that happened, Ann clung to Ragna's back while awake and held on.

"Ugh, this is honestly awful."

Slower than a horse, but riding on the back of a person doing full three-dimensional movement through terrain was not an easy thing to endure.

Enkrid actually thought Ann was holding up remarkably well.

This was not flat road running or walking. They were cutting across mountain paths.

The group had leaped over boulders and kicked up clouds of dry dirt as they went.

They had been covered in so much dry dust that blowing their noses produced black. Dragging a fingernail around the inside of an ear was the same.

By the time three days had passed, not just Enkrid but Ragna and Ann had started to expect something to block the way at any moment. Nothing happened.

They did not ease up on their guard against ambush, but there was no suspicious smell or sound at all.

They crossed several ridgelines, climbed steep mountain paths, were coated in dust, and forded one stream wide enough to give them pause.

The water only came up to the waist, but a gambeson or cloak soaked through would weigh a person down, so they had to hold their weapons and packs overhead and cross in nothing but thin trousers.

Honestly, Enkrid thought that was a perfect opportunity for an enemy. This time too, nothing happened.

That was how they arrived.

"This is the Rafata Gorge. You might want to know the etymology, but there's no time to explain right now. Bear with the disappointment."

Magroon spoke while looking at the dirt path rising steeply on either side. His tone was blunt, but Enkrid had grown used to talking with Magroon by now.

He wishes he could explain it. Just doesn't have the time.

The words had a sharp edge, but that was the meaning underneath.

Something like wanting to describe a famous landmark in your hometown to a friend.

But whatever lunatic was behind the ambushes had ruined Magroon's intent.

And that same fact still made passing through this gorge feel uneasy.

There was no other route that was not wildly out of their way, so through the gorge they went.

"...Why has nothing happened?"

Grida muttered.

"Exactly."

Ragna picked up the thought.

Almost laughably, no enemy attack came even when they were nearly at the doorstep of Zaun.

Enkrid found that strange.

Why?

The reason became dimly apparent the moment they arrived at Zaun.

Zaun sat in a basin atop a ridgeline, and the first impression was that of a clan village, nothing more. A handful of buildings in an old-fashioned style, and everyone wearing a sword, were the only things that kept it from being a plain rural settlement tucked somewhere Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts could not easily reach.

Then his eyes landed on the person standing guard at the front.

Laughably enough, it was someone he recognized. Not from reality.

"You're late. Grida."

A wooden palisade with sharpened tips rose well above an adult's head height.

A man stood at the gate in the middle, a gate built to swing open, currently open.

For a single instant, Enkrid thought of a castle gate that would never open and a sword that would never break. He had never seen a castle gate that had never once opened, nor a sword that could not be broken, but the moment he laid eyes on this man, those were the images that came to him.

The man's momentum was that immense. At rest, he was like a mountain.

Start moving, and he would be like a storm.

Enkrid's sharpened eye could see it.

In the dream, thick eyebrows, hollow cheeks, and a powerful build had been what first stood out. Face to face, what announced the man first was his presence.

"It's the family head."

Magroon said it, but Enkrid had already known before the words reached him.

The head of the Zaun family, the leader of a house that had produced knights. If not this man, who else would stand for Zaun.

"You've brought a guest."

The family head spoke, and as Enkrid felt the Will of Refusal rise inside him and cast off the family head's quiet, steady pressure, a question formed alongside it.

He doesn't know we're coming?

If Odinkar had arrived ahead of them, that could not be.

= = =

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried