WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 705: Information Matters

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The herbs from Milestia's treatment room were gathered up.

They belonged to someone now dead, which made them relics of a sort, and for some that might have carried weight. But no one was in a position to be precious about it right now.

Honoring the dead could wait until all of this was over.

Hoarding resources in the face of a crisis was the stupidest thing a person could do.

Some of the herbs were soaked through from the rain. The ones that could not get wet had been wrapped tightly in oilskin cloaks and the like.

Of everything laid out before him, Enkrid could identify three at best.

That was true even accounting for the fact that he had tumbled through enough rough situations to pick up basic emergency care along the way.

Plenty of the remedies soldiers and mercenaries swore by had come down through folk tradition without any proof behind them. Spitting on a cut wound so it would not rot, for instance.

Some herbs looked familiar but had no names he could place. Others had been too battered by the rain to make out at all.

"Give me all of it."

Ann climbed the stairs, spread everything across the hallway floor, set her bag down beside her, and began sorting through the herbs. There was no hesitation in her hands. She knew each one at a glance and worked fast.

Ragna stood quietly behind her.

The family head and everyone else watched Ann's hands in silence.

A few might have been expected to show nerves, but most kept a flat expression.

Part of it was that the people of Zaun tended to have slightly oversized livers, as the saying went. The rest came from the family head himself. His calm set the tone for the room.

He had pulled a chair to one side without fuss, sat down, beaten the mud from his wet boots with his palm, and turned them upside down to drain. Since then he had simply watched the window.

Crack, boom!

Between the crack of lightning and the howl of the storm came other sounds. Tap, thud, scrape, thwack, crunch.

Ann was crushing herbs in a small mortar, mixing them, blending in liquids.

She had finished sorting without anyone noticing and moved straight to work.

Anahehra carried Grida in and laid her down against one wall. She had not been brought in limp. Grida's face was pale from blood loss, but her eyes burned clear.

She had not made a sound the whole way, holding the pain inside until she was on the floor.

"I'm counting on you."

The giant said it. Ann did not look up. She opened her mouth just enough to answer.

"Got it."

Offhand as it sounded, no one said a word about it.

Ann pressed a knife under the bandage wrapped around Grida's stomach and drew it in one clean pull. Her hands moved with the kind of certainty Ragna showed with a blade.

She examined the wound carefully, then uncorked a vial and poured. Liquid from a metal bottle spilled across Grida's stomach.

Bbgrrr.

Foam bubbled up from the wound. Grida's body shuddered. A few people watched closely.

Is that actually fine?

That kind of doubt was probably behind some of those stares.

Ann paid it no attention. Once the foam settled, she glanced at the wound and held out another vial to Ragna without looking up. "Pour this." Ragna tipped it over her cupped hands. The liquid dried almost instantly, as though scattering into the air.

Then Ann threaded her needle and began to close the wound.

Enkrid had never seen treatment like this before. He had never seen Ann move with this kind of skill.

The needle sank into flesh. Was it less painful than a blade? Heskal had stabbed Grida in the stomach, and that had come without warning, in a moment she never saw. Now she could see the needle pulling her own skin together. And unlike a single sword thrust, this kept going.

It should have hurt more. But Grida bore it without a sound. Her brows twitched each time the needle went in, but she did not cry out.

When she spoke, it was clear she was not angry at the pain so much as at the situation itself.

"I should be glad my father wasn't behind it, right? Damn. Still feels like I got played, and I can't help that."

She said it lying flat. Some listened. Others let it wash past them.

"You didn't suspect Heskal?"

The family head turned from the window to glance at Grida, then looked outside again.

Enkrid was starting to get a read on him. He thought he understood why the family head had not looked away from the window.

Beside him, Alexandra was explaining something to Schmidt in a low voice. The more Schmidt heard, the graver his face became.

"I suspected him and prepared for it. He still got me."

Grida was honest about it. She was not without pride, but what mattered to her more than losing was what came next.

Guardians of Zaun always prepared for tomorrow and for the future.

Enkrid finally understood what that title meant.

Which was exactly why he could not understand what Heskal had done.

Grida behaved in a way that fit what a Guardian was. So what about Heskal? The man had lived for decades under that same title, as a Guardian of Zaun. What would drive someone like that to this?

It's not my problem to figure out.

Enkrid was a knight, not a fixer. His task was clear enough.

If he wanted to know why, he could put a blade to the man's throat and ask afterward.

Is there a faster, more efficient way than that?

No.

And if the man refused to talk? Same result either way.

There were methods, he supposed. Deception and the right kind of pressure, some psychological maneuvering. You could pry out what someone was hiding that way.

But does it matter?

It had already happened. Whatever was going on inside Heskal's head was not the point.

Enkrid's gaze moved to the limping swordsman Heskal had called his son.

Junior knight level in skill. His wish was to run on two legs without shame.

Swordsmanship suffered without the use of both feet. So he had sharpened his style into something built for a single decisive strike.

Along the way he had also learned to move on one leg.

All of it had been built for him by Heskal.

The one who most wanted to know Heskal's reasons right now was probably Riley Zaun.

Yet even he did not know. The faint anxiety on his face, the tight line of his mouth, the occasional flicker in his eyes, it all said the same thing.

Can he even fight properly like that?

A mind not settled meant a sword not settled.

Had the family head already decided what role Riley Zaun would play?

Something like shaking Heskal's focus?

The child he had raised for over a decade calls out to him.

"Father, why did you do this?"

Would Heskal flinch? Hard to say.

The risk of Riley being a traitor working from the inside was probably not worth accounting for. Unlikely.

Enkrid moved closer to the family head, who was still gazing out the window without expression.

"I didn't get weaker. Heskal had been hiding his strength. He was strong, Father."

Grida said it just then, and the family head dipped his chin once. He understood. His face still gave nothing away.

"Do you see anything?"

Enkrid asked from beside him.

The reason the family head kept watching the window was that he knew Heskal had not acted alone. Someone else might be working from outside. He suspected it and kept his eyes on the rain.

Some of the sharper-minded ones, the ones who read situations quickly, were doing the same.

A few, though, had their eyes closed. They were pulling their focus inward the way a blacksmith edges a blade, quiet, deliberate.

The clearest example was Alexandra. She had spoken briefly with Schmidt, then leaned her back against the wall, eyes shut, breathing slow and even.

Watching her, Enkrid thought of a sword wrapped in thin cloth. Not even a scabbard, just cloth, because a scabbard would be too much. A sword already ready to be drawn.

"Nothing."

The family head's answer was short. Enkrid had finally grown a little used to him.

Stop reading for emotion. Watch the actions and the behavior as they are.

Seen that way, the man's principles were simple enough.

That did not mean he never used the blankness of his face to his advantage. He used it as a shield, concealing his intentions, letting others misread him.

Something of a schemer, you might say.

At his level, scheming was probably necessary.

Looked at this way, Zaun came into focus.

Zaun was a nation. That made the family head a king of a small country, and Heskal the rebel.

Lynox and several others were listening to the exchange, but Enkrid saw no reason to hide anything anymore.

The members of Zaun were not the type to run when things turned against them. So they needed to know what they were fighting. The family head understood that too. The question was only timing, when to say it to everyone. He could help move that along.

"Where is Odinkar?"

"I had him hidden away under a pretext."

The family head answered at once, which confirmed it. They were thinking the same thing.

Lay out the situation for everyone, clear out the useless worry, leave no room for confusion. A fighter with noise in their head was a fighter with a wavering sword. Some people would sort themselves out, but others would be lost.

Heskal's betrayal was exactly that kind of blow.

"And Magroon?"

"That one I put with Milestia because they were in real danger. I don't know exactly where."

Shhhhhh.

The rain had eased a little. The wind that had felt strong enough to rip people out of the ground like weeds had dropped too.

Rattle, rattle.

The window frame still shook in the gusts, but less than before.

Enkrid thought back to what Lynox had said and asked.

"Jeri, Iben, Royce, Fail. Why were those four attacked?"

The answer he had expected came out of the family head's mouth.

"They all had military service."

Heskal was sharp. A person like that would not stab anyone at random. If he was willing to risk leaving tracks, there was a reason for it. That was the conclusion Enkrid had reached.

Military service. They had each served in an army.

He looked around the room.

The family head, Lynox, Alexandra, and more, each of them striking in their own way, gathered in one place.

Sent out onto the continent, any one of them could make a name on skill alone.

Even Riley Zaun, whose head was probably close to breaking from his father's betrayal, was someone few on the continent could handle.

But these people did not know how to fight as a unit.

"Is a demon involved?"

Even so, they were strong. There were more than five knights among them. To target a group like this, you needed serious power behind you.

That was the intent behind the question.

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"There are traces of whoever spread the disease, but I've never met them face to face. I've known for over twenty years that it was a latent, sustained threat, and I've been chasing it."

"The hunters' village has turned against you, I heard. What's the biggest danger that creates?"

"We're trapped. They'll have laid traps all around the perimeter."

The family head answered every question without inflection, and everyone in the room heard it.

So they were surrounded. And a sorcerer with a long history of spreading disease, the kind who would push a face above the clouds for the sheer sick pleasure of it, was targeting them as well.

And on top of that, everyone with field command experience had already been hit.

Ann was busy grinding herbs and preparing medicines, but the reality was that everyone here had been sickened.

The motive? As he had already said, it did not matter.

The swordsmen of Zaun felt the danger directly. That was why this came out.

"Right, so if they come at us, we kill them all."

Lynox the Destroyer said it plainly, and there was no anxiety behind it. He was a man who moved on whim and changed sides easily enough, but when his own family, the place where he was born and raised, was under threat, there was nothing to deliberate over.

Most of the members still in that room were the same. Getting to this kind of atmosphere had been the whole point of the exchange.

"If they come, cut them down."

"Is this a real fight? My sword's been whining at me every night, saying it wants to drink blood. I was getting tired of it."

"You stabbed Grida? You're all dead."

No one was losing their nerve. This was the kind of group that burned hotter in a crisis.

One of them was clearly unhinged, going on about his sword talking to him, but at least none of them had broken inside yet.

Information is important.

Ruagarne had said it more than once. Her tactical thinking ran ahead of any of the others, none of the wild ones could keep pace.

Enkrid had learned something from Frog.

In any fight, nothing mattered more than gathering information. What Enkrid had just done was exactly that.

You had to know what the enemy was after and what danger your own side was standing in.

Now that he had looked all of it in the face.

Well.

He found himself thinking it was not quite as bad a crisis as it might have seemed.

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