WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 717: Danger, Intensity, Clumsiness

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"I won't let you get taken down by some poison. Got it? And if you have something to say, just say it straight."

Right before Ragna stepped forward, Ann handed him a few vials from behind.

Ragna had been about to tell her that the disease had started in him too, but he stopped himself.

That was not something to bring up now.

He knew what he needed. Same as always, once he gripped a sword, the path became clear.

Poison.

Lynox had said Heskal coated the Inscribed Weapon with poison. And yet his Will wasn't reacting. All that remained in his shoulder was the mark of a blow he hadn't seen coming.

The blood running from the hole was washed away almost instantly by the rain. Not even a trace of it was left.

Part of that was the downpour, but most of it was because he had clenched the muscle around the wound the moment the blade went in, sealing it shut.

Body Tempering. Not bad. Fanatic.

The training method he'd picked up secondhand by watching Enkrid practice had finally paid off.

He'd also learned a few things directly from the fanatic.

"Ha ha, brother, that's it, that's exactly right. Try adding more weight? More, more, more, more."

Hmm. He'd nearly had a nightmare standing upright.

There was a reason that lunatic was not just any lunatic. The man wasn't even trying to fight, he'd just kept repeating how great everything was and chased him around lugging a lump of iron.

When Ragna swung his sword to drive him off, it turned into a spar. Honestly, at the time it had been half a brawl.

Both of them had thrown about half a spoonful of seriousness into it.

A monster of a fanatic. Hard to subdue in one go.

That was how Ragna had assessed Audin that day. And so he kept swinging his sword.

He had learned intensity from Enkrid, but it didn't surface on its own every time.

Even so, sparring against the things that clung to the captain, risking roughly half a life, was more than enough to heat up both body and mind.

When there was real danger, drive tended to wake up.

Like when the wildcat would suddenly go silent and close in.

Or when the Barbarian picked a fight out of nowhere and came at him.

Same thing, different day.

When that wasn't available, Ragna picked the fights himself. When he needed the stimulation, that was how he got it.

Especially when something worth fighting broke out in the captain's absence, the air turned a bit more savage and the exchanges became that much sharper.

One wrong move and death crept close enough to lick your cheek. Let it pull your attention, and this time your throat would actually get torn out.

He'd had to face moments beyond count where he needed to take one more step off the cliff's edge. Walk into the fire and keep moving. Walk barefoot across the blade.

Because if he didn't ,

I'm the youngest.

That was something he would never accept.

Ragna let his sword hang and looked forward.

I will never be the youngest.

The resolve hardened into Will and burned.

Just as Enkrid let his Will blaze in the middle of a fight, that same kind of light surged from somewhere inside Ragna.

If being the youngest was the alternative, he would accept any danger. If intensity was what it took, he would drag it out and use it as a weapon. That was why motivation was welling up in him like never before. Ragna meant every word of it.

* *

Heskal returned the sword named Camouflage, Disguise, in plain terms, to its original size and settled back into his opening stance.

He faced Ragna with his body turned half sideways, left hand tucked behind him.

From there he simply stood, watching with an empty expression.

Showing this kind of composure would press down on his opponent psychologically, and it would also keep the opponent's head busy trying to account for the extending blade, that shape-shifting form of Disguise.

Crowd the opponent's mind, drain their stamina through the wound, and hold the psychological edge at the same time.

All of it was calculated.

Of course, if he had seen an opening to kill his opponent with that first strike, finishing it there would have been the simplest path. But that hadn't been possible.

Heskal had landed one blow and then pulled back on instinct.

He had pressed with the Correct Sword and threaded it through with the Illusionary Sword. His tactics hadn't changed, and the hit had landed clean.

And yet.

Those eyes.

He wasn't about to do something as readable as swallowing hard and letting his nerves show. To all appearances, Heskal was composed.

Ragna's stance, even with a hole in his shoulder, was the same as before. He hadn't moved an inch from where he'd sidestepped. Aside from the flinch when the blade went in, he might as well have been a statue.

Shhhhhh.

The rain hammered his eyelids. The Medusa's curse had no hold on him, so he kept his head up, but Ragna was different. His chin was angled down, gaze lowered.

His eyes were not visible. When someone with a clear field of vision went up against someone limiting their own, the one who could see had the obvious advantage.

So why did it feel this cold?

Heskal felt the muscles across his body draw taut, stiffening with the coiled tension of an irritated viper.

Why?

Instinct read the situation before reason could catch up. Ragna hadn't done anything, but Heskal's long years of real combat had gifted him a very specific feeling. Dangerous. Threatening. A chill ran down his spine.

Which meant he was sensing a threat.

When had he last felt something like this?

He couldn't remember.

Heskal rounded his lips and let out a long, slow breath. Starting from deep in his gut, his core gradually loosened, and the muscles clamped across his whole body mimicked calm. The long, slow exhale kneaded the tension out.

While he did that, his eyes swept Ragna from head to foot one more time.

Both hands on the grip, arms hanging low, the left arm crossed in front of his abdomen.

Ragna had swung that greatsword once already, but now Heskal could see it clearly. Ragna had not actually moved yet. That greatsword was the real threat.

He's carrying a two-handed sword.

No other weapon visible. His attacking style appeared to be built around putting everything into a single blow.

It reminded Heskal of what he'd taught Riley.

What I taught Riley came from the family head's style.

Since Ragna had learned those same roots as a child, it would naturally resemble Tempest Zaun's sword.

Should he count it lucky that he'd sensed the threat now, even at this late point?

No need to ask. Obviously yes.

His thoughts were moving. He was already projecting what techniques and methods Ragna would show.

His odds had just improved.

He also understood now why he'd felt that chill.

You've put real work in, Ragna.

Whatever Ragna threw at him wasn't going to be light.

But, Ragna.

The rain drove in and Heskal narrowed his eyes, fine lines gathering at the corners. He had survived for a long time as a swordsman, and he had reached this point by clearing crises that should have killed him more times than he could count.

The instinct that made him sense danger had been forged by all those years.

The small fruit he'd earned by pushing through danger again and again would save him now, same as it always had.

Not everyone always fights honestly.

Fail to understand that, and you would die right here.

Krrrrrraaackk!

Lightning drew a long line across the sky above the sorcery serpent. Where the black clouds had swallowed the light, the lightning replaced it. White light briefly opened everyone's field of vision wide.

Heskal waited until the afterimage left by the lightning faded, then spoke.

Ragna still hadn't opened his mouth. He stood in exactly the same position.

"That must hurt."

The words were still aimed at shaking his opponent's mind.

To win a fight, you do whatever you have to. Children trapped in the well called Zaun don't know that. Geniuses don't know it either.

They think real skill means winning face to face, and that's the only victory worth having.

A proper and clean method? There's no such thing in a fight.

Ragna Zaun, do you understand that truth?

Probably not.

To gain something like that, you needed experience, the kind that came from throwing yourself at someone better than you and fighting as though your life depended on it. And then you had to actually break through the wall blocking your path. Sometimes that kind of experience mattered more than talent.

Experience that shattered limits.

That was what gave you the strength to keep moving when your feet sank into the swamp of Despair, and it was what built a foundation of Will that nothing could shake.

I wouldn't expect that from you.

What was impressive, if anything, was that he'd developed some small trick with words, crude as it was, and the focus he was showing right now.

No sign of being rattled by anything Heskal said. Ragna just stood there, still.

The image of Enkrid from Border Guard came back to him unbidden.

Even from Heskal's point of view, that one was something else. Setting aside current ability, the marks left by the road he'd traveled were carved plainly into his body.

Not scars. It was the habits worn into him, the choices he made when sparring, those told the story.

If it had been him, things might have gone a little differently.

Heskal thought it, then said it aloud.

"Watch yourself."

He thrust with the same stance as before. Ragna reacted faster this time.

Moving at the same speed would get him skewered by the strange blade, so moving faster was only natural. Heskal started the thrust and then bent his wrist mid-motion.

The blade extended silently from the moving sword. The edge shifted direction in mid-air and drove forward with added length.

The same slashing attack covered twice the range when the blade was longer.

What Heskal was targeting was the motion of bringing that hanging greatsword up.

Use what you've been saving.

The moment the impact reached the sword Disguise, a hidden blade was supposed to snap out sideways and cut through the throat.

He calculated the angles and accounted for the force Ragna's sword would carry. Open a path with the sword and drive the opponent into it.

He swung with all of that worked out, and with a faint nick, Ragna's cheek was cut.

Instead of swinging the greatsword, Ragna had stepped back at the last instant and slipped out of the attack's reach.

Then Ragna's foot hit the ground. His foot was faster than his retreat. The earth cracked where he kicked off.

He closed the distance, lifted a leg, and drove it toward Heskal's knee.

Heskal might not have matched anyone in the Zaun family in other areas, but in defensive technique he yielded to no one. He bent his knee to drop his center of gravity and brought his left hand down to cover his midsection.

With a sharp clatter, the gauntlet wrapped around his left hand unfolded into a small shield and caught the kick.

Thunk!

At the moment of impact, Heskal jumped slightly backward and scattered most of the force.

He had already absorbed the shock across his ankle, knee, and hip, then rode the jump to bleed off what remained.

Ragna had kicked the shield, then drew his extended left foot back, adding the rebound force into his step as he stamped down.

Bang!

His foot sank into the mud up to the ankle.

By every appearance it was a telegraphed attack, yet the greatsword hadn't moved. A feint. Heskal had lived too long with deception as a tool to be fooled by it.

The muscle movement, the shift in momentum, the tension in the fingers gripping the hilt.

On top of that, swinging now would make it easy to dodge. No matter how reckless Ragna was, he wouldn't throw away his one saved blow like that.

Heskal didn't underestimate Ragna.

"Clumsy."

That was what came out of his mouth. Ragna didn't answer.

Heskal pressed the attack. Sometimes Ragna evaded, and sometimes shallow cuts opened on his forearm or near his neck.

If Alexandra's fight had been a single-strike contest, this one felt more like a test of endurance.

Heskal kept calculating several moves ahead in his mind and drove Ragna back. Ragna appeared to be barely keeping up with each exchange.

How much time had passed? Short, depending on how you looked at it. Long, depending on the same.

Long for a fight between people of this caliber, short to an ordinary observer.

Time was relative, as it always was.

And it was the same for these two.

For one of them, the time felt short. For the other, it felt long.

Heskal pulled back a swing he'd been about to complete.

A dead end.

The Correct Sword, shaped from experience, instinct, and talent, was the guide that showed him his path. And the path ahead was blocked.

Three more swings and he could have cornered Ragna completely. A shame.

But if the fight continued like this, he would give Ragna an opening too.

A knight could move beyond human limits, but that didn't make one omnipotent.

Limits exist.

If you want a longer fight, I can give you that.

Heskal was reading through Ragna's occasional clumsy feints and readying another swing.

Blocked again?

Even precise swordsmanship had errors. Errors could be corrected. That was fine.

He was fighting while looking several moves ahead, not just one. In terms of the Correct Sword alone, he had believed Ragna could not be ahead of him.

And yet a strange thing kept happening.

Dead ends kept appearing in front of him.

It doesn't connect?

His method was to carve a path with the sword and force the opponent into it. That straightforward tactic was being blocked from the very start. He needed to swing, but the path kept cutting off. If he brought the sword down here, he could see what happened next, and what he saw was his own sword breaking, or having to contort into an evasion that robbed him of all his power.

Pull back entirely? Would Ragna's feet be fast enough to close that gap?

Fast. He'd seen it with the kick just moments ago.

The picture of Ragna's physical ability and movement that Heskal had built up assembled itself naturally in his mind into the next sequence.

Only then did Ragna open his mouth.

"Clumsy, Heskal."

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