A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 719

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 719: Just Two Swordsmen

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Up to now, Enkrid had managed his Will by forcing it under control, reining it in through sheer restraint, and it had cost him. His head felt like it had accumulated grime from the effort.

Restraining an overflowing Will took more mental strain than simply using it. Moving a heavier stone required more strength, that was exactly the situation he was in.

Head and body alike had picked up grime. He had fought on through the rain, forcing his Will under rein the whole time. His current state was nowhere near its peak.

Still, it was not a problem.

Kyaak!

A handful of Demon Creatures blocked the path, so he swung Penna and split their skulls.

Beside him, Ragna swung his greatsword without hesitation.

No wind shriek, just a light swing, and the greatsword buried itself in the Owlbear's torso. A precise thrust.

Apart from his Heavy and Fierce Sword style, Ragna's innate talent was the sort that might have startled even a Master of the Correct Sword.

He really does surprise me every time I see him.

As Enkrid saw it, Ragna swung his sword on instinct and intuition alone, and somehow that instinct and intuition kept working in his favor.

Pure talent. That's what it is.

The Owlbear that had just charged had, in fact, been watching for Ragna's slash. You could tell just from how it moved. This was a rare individual, the kind that turned up occasionally, one with exceptional combat instinct rather than any special ability.

Just like there are people who stand apart from the rest, there are Demon Creatures like that too.

The Owlbear had not hidden its presence. It had broadcast it, bracing for Ragna's slash.

When time is short and only a split second exists for judgment, people fall back on habit, on the motion that comes most naturally. So Ragna should have swung. The Owlbear's instincts had anticipated exactly that, and Enkrid had read it the same way, but Ragna thrust instead of slashing. No hesitation in it at all.

He had not changed his mind midway. He had attacked exactly as he had intended from the start.

That cornered the Owlbear's combat instincts completely.

Normally, even with its torso cut open, it would have tried to rake Ragna with its claws somewhere, anywhere. If luck held, maybe it would have gotten an eye.

The way it stretched its arm out as the greatsword ran through it was striking. If Ragna had slashed instead of thrusting, those extended claws might actually have found him.

Well, they would not have gotten him even then.

The better path was obvious. The result showed it plainly enough.

The Owlbear, run through by the greatsword, staggered back and fell. A hole had opened in its belly, and a follow-up grind of the blade caved in its skull.

"Why'd you thrust?"

"Because I felt like it."

That was the answer he got.

No wonder Heskal loses to him.

Ragna acted like deception was his main weapon, but it was not. That was what kept drawing Enkrid's quiet admiration.

Heskal carried his deceptive sword as though it were a hidden fang, a secret no one else knew, but anyone who mattered knew it was an open secret.

Heskal's real strength lay in the Correct Sword form, in the personal tactics that drove an opponent into a corner.

Heskal had built layers of deception through countless battles and a sharp mind, draping it all like a Veil and wielding it as a weapon. A double bluff. Even his deceptive sword was a tactical instrument. Once you were caught in his web of calculation, you would thrash like a butterfly in a spiderweb until you died.

But what if the opponent was Ragna?

Ragna always pushed the opponent straight into a dead end first. The Heavy and Fierce Sword came after. That was how his sword worked.

Come to think of it, the foundations of the Wave-Blocking Sword had been drawn from Ragna's swordsmanship. The process was different, but the result was the same. Enkrid blocked through calculation. Ragna blocked through inborn talent.

He knew where the sword needed to go without anyone telling him. It was like finding a path he had never walked before.

That was what made him heaven-sent. A natural genius.

A completely different kind of talent from Rem's improvisational judgment.

"What a monster," Enkrid said, not breaking stride. Ragna walked with his head half-lowered. With Will running low, avoiding the Medusa's gaze was the right call.

But hearing those words, Ragna raised his head.

A waste of Will, but he could not let that slide.

"Let me return the favor. Being called something like Rem is just about as unpleasant. Captain."

The lazy one said it word by word, then lowered his head again.

"Picking a fight?"

"Sincerely."

Enkrid gave a short laugh and kept his awareness spread wide, his head still angled down.

At some point, someone who seemed to be from the hunters' village loosed a couple of arrows, then bolted.

Enkrid plucked them out of the air.

Not particularly powerful. A plain arrow without Will transferred into it posed no real threat to him now.

Back when Leona Rockfreed had first come to the city, he had needed to use Focus Point just to dodge a thrown dagger. Now he snatched arrows out of the air in a calm state.

His Dynamic Visual Acuity, motor control, raw strength, and reflexes were all in a different league from before.

They kept pushing forward, closing the distance to the Medusa. The closer they got, the heavier the pressure bearing down on his body.

The Cursed Ground was home to countless Demon Creatures, and the ones that stood above the rest earned names.

The Balrok was one. The Medusa was another.

Shaaaaaaa!

The sorcery snake floating overhead scattered the same wail the Scalers had used.

This isn't good.

They had fought well up to this point, but if things dragged on, Zaun was the side that would lose. The reason was simple.

No matter how capable they were, if the remaining Demon Creatures threw themselves at Zaun's stronghold all at once, there was no stopping each one individually.

Even if the family head and those here survived, if the rest of Zaun's members all died, would Zaun as a body have survived?

Could you call a kingdom a kingdom with no people in it?

You could not.

That was why the things affecting the whole battlefield had to be removed.

Even without tactical instinct, anyone who could read the situation would reach the same conclusion.

Enkrid roughly gauged the distance to the Medusa and thought back to the demon he had cut down before.

The One-Killer was a Decisive type, something that killed with a single graze.

The Medusa fought in a completely different way.

Two sword-swingers were closing in, and yet this creature, the named beast of the Cursed Ground, did nothing but scatter its petrification curse.

A fight that demands endurance.

That was how the Medusa would fight. The scales wrapped around its body were visibly hard, and those dark-green lips, cracked like drought-split earth, would spit poison. There was a tail too, carefully tucked behind its body as though hiding.

An Endurance type.

You could call it a natural enemy of knights. Its Pressure bore down on the whole battlefield, and estimating the extent of its stamina from its size alone was no easy task.

It also had the ability to turn short-burst aggression back on the attacker.

A terrible matchup for knights who specialized in quick, decisive battles.

Enkrid could manage a different style of fight, of course. He could pace himself and take the Medusa on its own terms, grinding it out in a war of attrition.

If I drag it out, it's an easy win.

Hack away, chip at it bit by bit, and he figured he would win after two days of hard work.

Parts of the Medusa, including its serpent hair, would regenerate when cut, but that could not go on forever.

Endure the petrification curse when it came. Dodge the tail and claws when they came. Then find the opening, cut, thrust, chip, and kill.

He could see that future without needing to fight it. Insight was telling him what tomorrow looked like. Three days at most and it would be over. Though it was a strategy no one but Enkrid could pull off. You would need bottomless Will, plus the stamina and mental fortitude to fight for three days straight.

But fighting that way meant losing.

While he stalled, Riley holding the rear, Anahehra slowly running out of strength, and Kato would all die. That would collapse the postern gate Zaun was using to hold. Even if the main wall held, getting hit from behind through the postern would make it all meaningless.

Winning but failing to protect, that was the more accurate way to put it.

"Ragna."

"Yes."

"We end it in one stroke."

No point in a detailed tactical rundown. They would move with the situation as it shifted. But roles had to be set clearly.

"You open the way."

He could not entrust the killing blow to Ragna with a hole already in his shoulder.

Ragna did not answer with words. He raised his greatsword. The tip pointed at the sky.

Crack!

Lightning split the air right on cue. White light swept overhead.

Zaun sat in a basin. Bad luck and you were positioned perfectly to take a lightning strike, but it also made for a fine stance to fire up the momentum. Enkrid watched, slid Three-Iron into its scabbard, steadied his breathing, and spoke. He could not help saying this.

"Just two sword-swingers, advance."

Ragna echoed it back, joining the intent.

"Just two sword-swingers, advance."

Cut down the Demon Creature of the Cursed Ground in one stroke. This was nothing like the fight against the One-Killer. Fail here and they would die.

Was this a gamble? Maybe.

But if they did not do it this way, many people would die.

This fight was not easy. It was dangerous. Calling it a gamble was fair. Maybe that was why.

Fun.

A surge of exhilaration rose from somewhere deep inside Enkrid and burned all the grime away. The residue that had been dulling his mind and weighing down his limbs swept up in the blaze.

The residue was gone, and in its place a flame burned.

A flame fierce enough to vaporize every raindrop falling now roared to life from within him.

Ready. Ragna stepped out in front, almost like he was blocking for Enkrid, and started to run.

* * *

With every step forward, Ragna felt the Pressure the Cursed Ground's monster put out.

Like sinking into a swamp. And the Medusa was not alone on top of that.

The moment he stepped out, two Scalers lunged at him from left and right like gusts of wind.

Ragna swept his greatsword in a half-arc and split both Scalers clean through the torso.

Fwaaaak!

Dark blood scattered across the ground. He picked up his pace.

Tung!

He kicked off the earth and surged forward, and Enkrid followed behind.

Ragna found it absurd that the captain had called him a monster.

Who was calling who that?

Father doesn't know. Mother doesn't know. Nobody knows.

The cross-section where Enkrid had cut his hair during that bathroom spar was clean and sharp. The winner and loser of that match had been clear enough. It had been a spar with real intent mixed into it. Since coming to Zaun, Enkrid had not done that kind of near-combat sparring with anyone else.

A captain fighting for real and a captain focused on sparring were completely different. Ragna knew that.

When the captain fights at full strength, he thought.

He would surpass what Ragna was now. Since the elf's forest, Ragna had pushed things to make it look like they were even, but in a straight fight right now, he would lose.

That pleased Ragna enormously. Whether rain poured down, whether lightning cracked in the distance, whether the Medusa stood right there, a tremor ran through his whole body. Desire raised its head and drive surged up. When he added all of it together, there was only one thing he wanted to see.

So, what will you show me? That fumbling troublemaker of a squad leader who used to stumble around had now surpassed him.

Genius? Talent? Laughable. Someone who had cleared all of that stood right here.

And even now, that person kept reaching for something, never stopping his feet.

Have you taken another step forward?

He asked it inside himself. No answer needed. Of course Enkrid had. That was just who he was.

He was a craftsman who kneaded the clay called yesterday, fired it in the kiln called today, and drew out the vessel called tomorrow.

What kind of vessel had he fired this time?

That was what Ragna wanted to see.

His sword stayed calm. It struck down whatever came at him as though it already knew the answer.

Fwang!

Past a certain distance, the Medusa's tail finally dragged along the ground and charged in.

Krakakakaak!

The earth bucked and heaved. The scales wrapping the tail rose to sharp points, and it was like a great column of blades bearing down on him.

Can't dodge.

Not a conclusion reached by observing, processing, and reasoning. Instinct.

Jump up to evade and the tail would follow. So dodging was not an option. He had to block.

Block once, and he would find himself pressed on the defensive from a position he did not want. Working through all of that in his head was not something Ragna needed to do.

Instinct and gut told him plainly: do not dodge.

He raised his greatsword and drove it into the ground.

Thwang!

It felt like a pillar torn from some royal palace had come flying and slammed into him. And that was not the end of it. The blade-like scales crowding in close raked across the back of Ragna's sword hand.

Crrrch.

The leather gauntlet carved open, leaving a wound on the back of his hand too. Still, at least his wrist was not severed.

Then the Medusa's tail end curved and rose upward, and from the tip appeared a sharp spine, a shy young bride who had been kept out of sight for three years, now finally meeting her bridegroom.

Pull the greatsword free and the sweeping tail would send him flying. Then he would have to spend more Will and stamina closing the distance again.

That was exactly what the Medusa wanted.

Leave it alone, though, and that young bride was going to steal a kiss, and with a tongue that sharp and pointed, a very large hole through his skull seemed the natural outcome.

Dodge and get hit anyway. Don't dodge and still get hit.

Where was the answer? What path was left?

This time too, Ragna's instincts found it first. He reached his hand back.

Penna found his grip.

The captain's secondary weapon. He caught it and swung. That simple motion, and he poured concentrated Will into it. The same as when he had cut down Heskal.

Will Transference.

He succeeded again. When he had practiced alone, he only managed it six times in ten.

The Will condensed in Penna burst into blue-white light.

Fwakakakakak!

The tip of the Medusa's tail flew spinning through the air along exactly the arc Ragna swung, severed clean. It twitched on the ground like something still alive despite being cut off.

The young bride had been left at the altar.

And then.

Now.

The Medusa's head was high up, far above. Even with three grown men standing on each other's shoulders, eye level would only barely reach it.

But the tail that had charged and then stopped had created a staircase leading up toward that head.

Ragna saw the path. If he could see it, the captain could see it too.

Just as he had not needed to be told when he reached back and put Penna into the captain's hand, no words were needed now.

Ragna dropped to a half-kneel, and Enkrid stepped onto his shoulder from behind and launched himself upward.

A light step. He had not pushed hard, yet Enkrid's body shot up the Medusa's form faster than a loosed arrow.

Kwa-ang!

An oblivious bolt of lightning dropped right beside him. For one instant, the thunderclap wiped out all sound.

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