WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 691: I Hate It

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"It is a sword."

A plain answer.

"A relic?"

Enkrid asked again. The name attached to the sword, and the simple fact that it was no ordinary object, were both easy enough to read.

He had heard Ragna say he came to retrieve it, heard it was in the family head's possession, heard he had asked for it before, and knew the family head would not simply hand it over.

Thinking it through, receiving something called "Ilchul" probably required proving something, or meeting some condition.

That much was obvious just from watching how things were playing out.

'If Krais were here, he'd have thrown a fit trying to get a look at it.'

Even at a glance, it was clearly not the kind of thing a few gold coins would buy you even a peek at.

"It is a family heirloom passed down through generations."

"...And you want to take an heirloom back to Border Guard?"

"Yes."

Ragna showed not a flicker of hesitation. His voice did not shift in pitch even slightly from when he had said the word sword.

Enkrid knew his own personality was a little out of the ordinary. He was more stubborn than most, steadfast to a fault.

For some people, that would mark him as an oddity.

'But not like this guy.'

This one was genuinely unhinged.

Wanting to take an ancestral heirloom back to Border Guard, who in the world would permit that?

Enkrid's eyes had narrowed before he even noticed. Ragna caught the look and spoke.

"I find that unpleasant. Why are you looking at me the way you look at Rem?"

He said it mid-action. Water came rushing down, soaking Ragna's hair and shoulders as it ran. Clothes already stripped off, he was ladling water over himself and talking at the same time.

Enkrid poured water over himself and answered back. Dark water streamed down around his feet. It had been a while since he had washed properly, so despite everything, it felt good.

"Think about what you just said."

Ragna answered immediately.

"I don't see the problem."

Enkrid started to shake his head, then stopped and said with a wry laugh, "Of course a squad of lunatics ends up called the Madman Knights."

The old Ragna would have let that slide out of sheer indifference. But the Ragna of now was in the middle of searching for what he wanted to leave behind. He could not let a wrong statement pass without a response.

Truthfully, even back when everything had annoyed him, some things still snagged in his chest and refused to let go.

There were words like that. The kind you simply could not get past.

What Enkrid had just said was exactly that. And so Ragna provoked him the way he had been learning to.

"Wasn't that name given because the captain goes around breaking women's hearts?"

Enkrid's gaze drifted to the Three-Iron leaning against the wall. After washing up, a light warm-up with that would be just right.

Ragna leaned his back against the rim of the large wooden tub and tilted his chin up with a show of arrogance.

"The captain has at least left behind one legend, it seems. The destroyer of women's hearts."

Enkrid was not Ragna's mother, yet he found himself quietly impressed by the growth.

'His skill at provocation has improved.'

Whether that translated to sword skill was another question.

Could Ragna escape Wave and Flash without a scratch? Was this a good moment to test what he had realized during the journey?

'Yes.'

That was Enkrid's judgment. No particular reason. He wanted to do it, so he would.

By any objective measure, it was a ridiculous idea. He had been told to wash and come eat, so he should have held back.

But Enkrid had just watched Ragna's father and mother, and it had stirred something in him.

Put simply, his blood was up.

Slosh.

Enkrid pulled his hand out of the water. The water became his scabbard, and his hand became the blade. He straightened his fingers and applied force, shaping them into the form of a cutting edge.

Droplets scattered through the air. Steam hung heavy in the bathing room, pressing in from all sides, while a faint cool current threaded between them. Enkrid drew with his hand as though it were a sword, tracing a line that dropped straight from top to bottom.

"Crazy bastard."

Ragna let part of his thoughts slip out and raised his hand to meet it. The two hands crossed and collided.

Pak!

Water burst outward in all directions with the two of them at the center.

Ragna looked into eyes that burned like blue fire.

Why was this happening right now? He had no interest in asking, and no interest in complaining.

This was exactly why he had never been able to stand this man, because he always pulled something like this.

Same as ever.

Enkrid was a lunatic who lived today as if he might die tomorrow. That way of seeing life was the thing Ragna had learned most from him.

'Today, not a moment of it wasted, no matter the circumstances.'

That was the life he was chasing now.

'What is it that I want?'

He did not know. He could not find the answer. But did not knowing the answer mean he had to stop where he stood?

"If you don't know, keep moving without knowing. Do what you can do right now."

Enkrid always said that. Not always in words, but through action, through attitude. Ragna took that in and answered.

"Let's see if we can turn this tub red."

Enkrid hit back.

"With your blood."

Ragna denied it with a blank face.

"No."

* * *

The loud and chaotic washing hour passed.

Either way, they came out clean. After shaking the dust from their clothes and setting them aside, a servant had laid fresh ones out in front of them.

"I told you two to wash. What exactly did you do in there?"

Grida was wringing out her wet hair with both hands as she said it. From where she stood, it was a perfectly natural thing to say.

Ragna had a lock of hair on his forehead cut clean away, and Enkrid had a bruise blooming blue on his cheek from a badly landed strike.

"Conversation."

"Water play."

Their answers differed, but there was nothing more worth asking.

Enkrid gave his vague reply and checked what he was putting on. Gray trousers with a firm-woven outer layer and a soft inner lining, and a stiff beige shirt.

He slung the rest separately over his shoulder, gauntlets, gambeson, and a light green vest crafted by a Dryad artisan from the elf folk, and kept his sword belt and arms on him as they were.

He never let those leave his body, so Grida said nothing about it.

Within the Zaun household, wearing a sword was ordinary, and no one would think twice. They were guests; of course guests would be armed.

This was a place where even the cooks wore paired swords.

Ann had changed into something like a loose-fitting dress with a wide cut, one small bag slung at her hip.

Her wet hair could not be tied back, so she shook it loose and let it fall to her shoulders. She combed through it a few times with her fingers, then let out a slow breath.

She had come here with a purpose of her own. She would have to raise the matter at dinner, and that had her nerves running.

"Let's go."

Grida led the group again. As they walked toward the dining room, a savory, faintly sour smell reached them.

It had been a long time since a proper meal, and Enkrid felt the pull of it. Then they stepped inside, and he tilted his head.

Among the people seated at the wide oval table, one face looked familiar. He had not seen them in so long that the name had slipped away, but the face was definitely one he knew.

He searched his memory and found the name.

"Ray?"

The other person recognized him too. Eyes went wide with surprise, then the brow creased.

"...I never gave you my name. Enkrid of the Border Guard."

The shock had been clear for a moment, but such a baffling thing to say had drawn an automatic reply.

Brown eyes, an ordinary-looking face, someone who had once visited Border Guard carrying a rapier and told Enkrid to come along.

The sharp, narrow set of the eyes had stayed with him. Eyes like that could look menacing on their own, yet the overall impression was somehow soft. A strange one.

Pulling up the face brought the rest back with it: long arms, and a fast sword.

"Hey."

Enkrid raised his right hand in a casual greeting.

"I don't think we were ever close enough for that."

From the other person's side, even calling this a reunion would be a stretch, so the fact that Enkrid had remembered at all was already something.

"Were we not? My memory is fuzzy."

He said it honestly, and the other person moved their lips a few times before answering.

"Fair enough. Anyone can forget."

This man had already heard word of Enkrid, so the only surprise was running into him here.

'Why are you turning up here of all places?'

The question surfaced, but by now he knew what Enkrid had done since becoming a knight.

'I assumed half of it was exaggeration.'

It did not look that way at all, and that was what genuinely unsettled him. Though what was there to say about it?

Not everything in the world goes the way you expect.

He prided himself on his ability to predict and deduce what lay ahead, but he did not claim to be a prophet.

'Still, it is a surprise.'

Looking now, this was no ordinary knight either. The level seemed quite high. Not that his eye could measure it precisely, that was its limit.

"Well, everyone's here. Let's eat."

The family head said it.

'So the son who left long ago brought guests.'

The man at one end of the table let his gaze move over Ragna.

'That one was the Zaun child, was he?'

Then again, even back then the unusual talent had been visible.

'He followed his son here.'

The purpose was unknown, but the rough shape of how it had unfolded was guessable. That was only a guess, though, and various thoughts drifted through his mind.

The world has a way of turning that nobody can fully predict.

He had not expected to sit across from someone here, someone he had once watched as a young man brimming with dreams and romance, someone he had fully expected to be crushed and swallowed by failure before long.

"You two know each other?"

Ragna's mother rose to welcome the guests and asked.

"He came through the city once, stayed a while, and tried to talk me into going with him," Enkrid said, keeping it brief.

"That's the kind of work he does."

Alexandra said it without concern and gestured to the seats. The family head sat first.

Next came the narrow-eyed man Enkrid had not seen in so long, then Ragna took the seat directly across from the family head, with Ann beside him and Enkrid beside her. Grida sat next to Alexandra. Magroon was nowhere to be seen.

As he sat down, Enkrid asked, "What kind of work is that exactly?"

There was no reason to hide it here, so the man was straightforward.

"I'm a talent recruiter for the Empire."

"A recruiter?"

"My job is traveling the continent and making special offers to people with exceptional ability."

Enkrid remembered the moment this man had once told him to come along.

The Empire's recruiter spoke first to head off any misunderstanding.

"The offer I made you back then wasn't about combat. I wanted you as a potential successor in my own line of work. I could see your head was sharp and you had a way with people."

He had the knack for saying exactly what the other person needed to hear before they asked, which was probably why the Empire had given him this position.

He told Enkrid what he would have been curious about and let some honest feeling show.

Saying it had not been about potential was meant to clear up any possible misreading, but Enkrid had not hoped for anything to begin with, so it was just what it was.

He had already known long ago that his own talent was nothing to speak of. The day he had not been holding a sword long and a genius child had put a hole in his stomach, that day.

"A funny coincidence. Let's eat."

The family head made the suggestion, and no one stood on ceremony.

Enkrid started with a well-roasted turkey leg and tore into it. Grida, on one side, was sprinkling a powdered seasoning over a cut of cooked meat.

Tasting the juice and richness of the turkey, Enkrid watched what she was eating and followed her lead.

Whether it was a northern custom or a Zaun custom he could not say, but the style was to sprinkle a powder over lamb.

The powder was a blend of several seasonings, and the taste was spicy, sweet, and sour all at once.

'Not bad.'

Overall it was a large spread, heavy on meat. Understandable, in a way.

The Zaun family was a place where people swung swords all day and trained without stopping, or so he had been told.

He had seen it on the way in.

Stone buildings for living, each with a personal training yard out front, and a large open ground right before the fortress.

'Looks like people gather there and train together sometimes.'

A few had in fact been wandering past with dull blades, the edges taken off.

No wonder they all preferred meat-heavy meals. Even so, the table was not ignoring balance. Here and there were mashed egg salads, greens drizzled with olive oil and vinegar, and cheese.

"It's not alcohol, but it'll have a kick."

Ragna slid a yellow-colored drink toward him. Enkrid tipped the copper cup back and the sharp tang hit his nose first, climbing straight to his head, then the flavor of mountain fruit swept wide across his palate.

"Wild raspberries fermented into vinegar, then diluted and aged. Not easy to come by."

It was made only from yellow wild raspberries that grew nearby, specifically on clifftops.

"You said you came with an important proposal, and yet you've brought outsiders."

The recruiter, who had been picking at his food, spoke.

"They can hear whatever is said."

The family head answered at once, then picked up a napkin and wiped the seasoning from the corner of his mouth.

"Are you certain?"

"Of course."

The recruiter held his silence for a moment, then opened his mouth.

"What I am about to say comes as a proposal from His Majesty the Great Emperor of the Empire. Become a Shield Duke. Tempest Zaun."

Enkrid did not know the full context, so he only listened. The word Emperor came up, but he was not surprised.

It had been within his expected range from the start. Even before the rapier swordsman revealed himself as the Empire's recruiter, Enkrid had already guessed the man's origin was either the great southern power or the northern Empire.

If it were neither, there would have been no standing to make such an offer.

'Probably recruiters from the north and south have been combing the central continent for a long time.'

There would have been many cases of talent being pulled away.

So this was nothing to be surprised by. Anyone paying attention to the shape of continental affairs could have predicted it.

What was strange was something else, a scent coming off this man that had not been there before.

'Odd.'

It was the scent that came off sorcerers.

Not a heavy sweetness, but faint. And the ones who had ambushed the group repeatedly on the way here had all been sorcerers.

He had not yet managed to raise the matter properly with the family head. But that was the truth of what had happened.

And then the family head answered.

"No."

Firm. Definite. Still without any feeling in it, which made it sound almost careless, but it was not.

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