WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 745: The Day He Dreamed Of

= = =

"Being a knight is not the end."

At Enkrid's words, Fell raised his head. His cheek was bruised, and both arms hung limp at his sides.

He had taken hits near the shoulders and elbows, and the muscles were cramping. He could not lift his arms.

In a bout between a training blunt and the Idol Slayer, the outcome had been clean and simple.

Dodge and hit.

That was the basic principle of swordsmanship. He knew you had to use your footwork heavily to make it work.

Fell knew this too, yet after being on the receiving end, he found himself wondering whether anything he had understood up to now was actually right.

Rather than relying on footwork, Enkrid had read each attack as it came and responded by striking faster and harder, batting Fell's offense aside before landing his own blows.

Why did it go like this?

A flower of questions bloomed vividly in his chest. And with that doubt came the full weight of what Enkrid had said.

Being a knight was not the end. It was the beginning.

By now Fell would be counted among the top fighters in the Shepherds of the Wilderness. Here, he was not.

Enkrid still swung his sword every day like a man possessed. Everyone he had influenced kept training and training. That was the sight Fell saw every morning.

One sparring session was enough to bring the sense of omnipotence back down to a proper level, and Fell could once again tell what he was capable of from what he was not.

"What about that guy Ropord?"

One of the things he could do right now was beat Ropord senseless. That much was clear.

Fell went looking for him, and Ropord stepped into the knights' training hall a day later. Naturally, he had broken through his own wall as well.

The difference between them was that Fell had gotten drunk on that feeling of omnipotence, while Ropord had skipped past that stage entirely.

Monsters everywhere around me.

Every member of the Madman Knights, Enkrid included, was a good signpost and a worthy target to aim for.

Ropord had watched them and considered what they had done, so he never let himself be intoxicated by the feeling.

That came down to a difference in temperament, not in ability.

In truth, Ropord had not yet clearly sorted out what he could and could not do either.

Either way, both Fell and Ropord could now use Will naturally, and because of that they still regarded each other as their greatest rivals and nothing more.

"You're barely catching up," Fell said with a sharp grin.

"Who's catching up to whom?"

"You to me."

"Me to whom?"

"Ah, does denying it make you feel better?"

"Me to whom?"

The back-and-forth between Fell and Ropord was almost affectionate to watch. Seeing them cross blades right after was the same.

A soldier who had come to deliver a letter did look a little startled at the two of them fighting, but anyone who regularly walked into the knights' training hall had built up a tolerance for this sort of thing.

They had all witnessed Rem and Ragna, Rem and Audin, Rem and Jaxon going at each other often enough that something like this hardly registered.

The letter was from the Pioneer King of the East.

Dunbakel went an entire month without washing and broke through her wall.

What kind of report is this?

There were several other matters from the East as well, but the main subject was Dunbakel.

Apparently she was being called the Golden-Eyed Lion over there now.

And something to the effect that they would not be giving her back, so anyone coming to retrieve her had better be prepared for trouble.

Well, something like that.

It is not as if I ever bound her to begin with.

If Dunbakel had chosen to stay in the East, he would respect her decision. Unless Anu was keeping her there by force, there was no reason to go charging after her.

He would ask once, of course. But that was all.

"Are you busy?"

After he finished reading, Sinar came to find him.

"If you're not, come play with me."

It was not actually an invitation to play. It was the elves' characteristic way of conveying a truth in roundabout form.

The elf city was summoning Enkrid. They had something to give him.

Before he left, he glanced back and saw Fell and Ropord sparring at a measured pace, sizing each other up.

Becoming knights had made each person's individual qualities stand out more sharply.

Then they will not kill each other.

And this was the knights' training hall. Even without him there, someone would step in at the last moment.

"Let's go then."

"You've become quite an interesting person. My betrothed."

She had not expected him to rise so readily, and Sinar's eyes curved with amusement. He did not know why she smiled, but an elf's smile was like a thief that stole the human heart.

Enkrid could watch it plainly, of course.

Becoming a knight sharpened the mind as well.

When the heart wavered, the body wavered with it.

Once you understood that, the habit of steadying yourself at any moment became second nature.

Led by Sinar into the elf city, he was first greeted by Woodguard Bran.

Puff.

White smoke drifted from his mouth. A tree chewing fire.

"Still smoking tobacco?"

"The stuff is a demon. Once you start, it's hard to stop."

He passed the wooden elf guarding the city entrance and stepped inside. One of the fire-wielding elf clans from before caught his eye and gave a small nod, then fell in at a distance behind him.

That was not the end of it. Every elf eye in the city attached itself to him.

Enkrid was the hero who had saved the elf city. Their idol.

They came swarming, every one of them, just to see his face.

"They all have good eyes," Sinar said, glancing around at them. Whether there was pride in her voice or whether he was imagining it, he could not tell.

"Does nobody have anywhere to be?"

The cluster of elves keeping their distance rustled and shuffled along, staring at him from between the bushes and trees without a word.

It might have unsettled someone else. Enkrid let it pass without a second thought.

Better this than being forced to attend a ball and getting surrounded by dozens of ladies.

At least they were watching from a distance.

Then the representative of the elf clan stepped forward.

Enkrid had already forgotten the middle-aged elf's name again.

Something similar had happened when he woke up after cutting down the One-Killer.

He searched his memory carefully and ventured a guess.

"Ermen?"

"You got it right this time."

The elf nodded with a satisfied smile.

"Do you forget my name often too?" Sinar asked from beside him, and something from the past surfaced in Enkrid's mind.

This elf was just as mischievous now as she had been then, but he had changed since those days, and so words like that rolled off him without catching.

A fair amount of time has passed.

More things to protect, and more things actually protected. It would be a lie to say he was not proud.

"Was your name Zanar?"

"I walked right into that one."

The joke drew a smile from Sinar. She smiled more often than she used to.

"Here," Ermen said.

He had called Enkrid to the city in order to give him something. The clan head handed over a folded cloth.

Enkrid took it and shook it open, and the fabric caught the air with a flutter. It was a dark green cloak.

Is that vitality?

He felt something from the cloak, a living energy like what breathed out of trees and grass.

"As soon as they settled here, the Dryads spent several months spinning the thread, and they wove their hearts into it."

The dark green cloak glimmered with a soft inner light, as though it had drunk in the sun. Enkrid swung it around his shoulders.

It had reached to just below his thighs, but it lengthened on its own, draping down to his ankles.

A cloak with a spell woven in.

The length adjusted itself, and from inside rose the clean scent of fresh grass.

Wearing it felt like walking through a forest. Just putting it on.

A cloak was not ordinarily a tool for fighting, but knights had a way of turning even that into something useful. The Red Cloak Knights used their cloaks to deflect spells.

You could tell at a glance. Care and feeling had gone into this thing.

It reminded him, strangely, of the boots the cobbler craftsman had given him.

That man too had given his best within what he was capable of.

Just as the elf clan was doing now.

"Suits you well. Especially the color."

And so the symbol of the knight order shifted, just slightly, from a dark blue cloak to a dark green one.

Whoever had planned it, the Border Guard sigil had already been stitched onto the cloak.

"Wait, the cloak color's changing?" Krais asked, passing by on the way back and stopping to look.

Enkrid nodded. "Looks that way."

All the while, Sinar trailed three steps behind him with eyes full of bright expectation.

"Grass-green is love," she said with a laugh, looking pleased with herself. She seemed genuinely delighted to have gotten him wearing an elf symbol.

He had received a precious gift, and in the afternoon Esther came to him and said she wanted to walk the market and asked him to come along.

It was a rare thing, so he nodded and strolled a lap around the market with her.

"Smiles on people's faces. That's a strange sight."

Esther observed people. Things she had missed living in the forest, she could now see and understand.

To her eyes, this city was best described as full.

"Hey, buy something," called a Giant who had set up a stall.

"What are you doing here?"

Seiki was also there, selling medicinal herbs and the like.

Someone with divine power at the level of a Holy Maiden, out picking herbs to sell. Seiki had lived as a ranger before any of this, so gathering and identifying herbs was something she was comfortable with.

"I can't just keep eating for free with a perfectly healthy body. A person needs work."

A life of play and rest and training her divine power and watching stars from a mountainside was pleasant enough, but you could not let boredom go unchecked or let diligence slip away from you. That was her thinking, anyway.

A stance with its own logic and reasoning behind it.

"Huh? Uncle?"

Then Enkrid ran into a lost uncle.

"Hic."

He had forgotten the name. The face was different from before too. The beard was trimmed clean, the hair cut short, and it looked like he had lost weight.

But that expression he could never forget. The pupils lost focus and the mouth fell open.

This was the man who had once loudly declared himself the uncle of the Iron Wall Knight when he found out Enkrid was a friend of Leona, head of the Rockfreed Trading Company, the same merchant who had gotten caught tormenting the trading company Enri led and paid a heavy price for it.

It was strange that he could promptly forget Ermen's name but not forget someone like Malton, but what could you do when your mind arranged itself this way on its own.

"The Iron Wall Knight," Malton murmured.

Enkrid nodded.

"Good to see you again. You've changed quite a bit. Any pocket money?"

Malton was living a different kind of life now. Nothing like the days he had walked around full of venom, like a poison toad.

"Of course. As much as you need," Malton said, his eyes back in focus.

Something's different.

Enkrid noticed it and gave a slow nod. People change. That was something they could do.

From what he heard, Malton was now working as a head merchant under the Rockfreed Trading Company. A head merchant was the lead trader overseeing several merchants under him, and peddling happened to be this man's specialty.

"I've been to that village too," Malton added.

He brought news of the Hidden Village Enkrid had stopped by once.

"They said you're always welcome, any time. They haven't forgotten the kindness."

Not exciting news, exactly. But warm.

From Dunbakel to the Hidden Village.

Today seemed to be the kind of day where interesting stories found him from every direction.

"A fresh apple pie just came out. Want to take one with you?" innkeeper Allen asked as Enkrid passed by.

Vanessa, with more wrinkles than before, sat in a chair in front of the inn and called out to him.

Fruit vendors here and there greeted him.

The cobbler craftsman smiled and said it had been a while.

He had dreamed of days like this.

The apple vendor who cut out the rotten part and handed it to you.

The old serving woman who roasted potatoes over a banked fire.

The foul-mouthed stooped old woman who had once sold her body.

The mercenary who ran from fighting and battles and dreamed of peaceful days.

A day where all of them could smile, where Enkrid could walk and greet them and let the hours pass in a place like that.

Today, even swinging a sword had been more enjoyable than usual, and trading jokes with Sinar had been good.

Esther talked quite a bit about the new things she had seen as a witch. Whether you could call it chatting, she was certainly more talkative than usual.

"It's a bit slow today. So, here, take a look. My salon proposal," Krais said.

He seemed to be right on the edge of unfolding his dream.

Something about how when the noble crowd gathered inside Border Guard, they would need a place to talk.

Enkrid caught sight of Leona in the middle of the day.

"Something I found in the village this time, it's, no, let's talk later."

Kin Bysar was with her.

"Several ladies who have their eye on you seem to be sighing," Kin Bysar remarked.

Walking with Esther, there had been quite a few eyes following him, and that was probably who she meant.

The sunlight was clear, the clouds were few, and the sky was blue.

Back at the Border Guard training grounds, Ragna was in the middle of teaching something to a squad of ten soldiers. Enkrid had shared the framework for training knights, and Ragna was putting part of it into practice.

"Today, instead of fighting by instinct, let's have a real bout," Rem said before dinner.

The sparring was good. He worked up a full sweat, and Rem's flashes of improvisation in the moment always threw his calculations off.

Even that disruption he absorbed back into the realm of tactics.

"That's it," Ruagarne said with admiration.

After the sparring ended, he had to sit with her and talk for several hours.

A city full of things he had protected, and the people who shared it with him.

Today was a day he had once dreamed of.

And in the dream, the Boatman appeared. Then the Boatman made a proposal.

"Not a future of loss and resentment and despair, but today, full of satisfaction and joy, is what waits for you. Cut your own life short before you sleep. That is all you need to do."

Yes. Even to Enkrid, the Boatman's proposal made a certain kind of sense right now.

= = =

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