WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator: Hydrogen B
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES
Chapter 747: Instilling Will
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Enkrid admitted the Boatman's little trick was something else.
Though it also felt a bit like a shove in the back telling him not to waste time enjoying the present.
Or maybe it meant he should gather strength through rest.
'Or is it telling me to take care of what I've been putting off?'
The Boatman's words were sensible enough, but Enkrid took them his own way. His conclusion came quickly.
'Let's catch the Balrok.'
The wish of the City of Aoara lived on, still lodged in his chest.
Then an imagined vision of the Boatman seemed to burst out and shout. Not real, of course. Just a picture of what the reaction would probably be.
"You crazy bastard. I said stay in the present, not go picking fights with anyone."
The real Boatman's reaction probably would not have been much different.
Enkrid had made his resolve clear by the campfire. He had no plans to leave this very moment, but he intended to set out soon.
Crackle. Pop.
The resolve Enkrid had declared burned bright above the campfire's glow.
Just as he had once said he would become a knight, he now said he would catch the Balrok.
It did not sound like empty boasting. Everything he had walked through to get here was proof of who he had become.
Stars in the night sky. The campfire's light. The cry of insects. Fire moths and their kind drifted in as if to celebrate the vitality of early summer.
Ruagarne's tongue shot out and snatched one from the air.
"Raw things have their own flavor."
Elves were said to live on grass and fruit. Frogs, on the other hand, were said to subsist on insects, which were rich in nutrients.
'She says it so often it just comes to me on its own.'
Under starlight and moonlight, the group sat gathered around the campfire, each one settled wherever suited them.
Rem leaned back at an angle, spinning his axe with just his fingers. Ragna held Ilchul to his chest, sheath and all.
Friends and companions with no intention of settling anywhere, set against the backdrop of an early summer night.
The camp in one corner of the Madman Knights' training ground was quiet, as it always was. The people who normally filled the air with noise had gone silent, and a peaceful stillness hung over everything.
Rem spun his axe and smirked to himself. Ragna, sword still clutched to his chest, yawned repeatedly.
Since they were not leaving right now, they had apparently decided to go back to being lazy.
Audin straightened his posture as if offering a silent prayer. Teresa hummed softly to herself. Ropord and Fell caught each other's eyes and gave a quiet nod.
In the middle of all this, Sinar smiled. The hour of sunset had passed, and moonlight rested on her face.
Beauty beyond human was the kind that could stir the air with a smile alone.
Sinar, having caught Enkrid's gaze, murmured as if reciting a poem, or singing a song.
"If you leave me behind again, I will show you the rare sight of an elf city in pursuit."
A dagger made of ice came sailing through the still, warm air.
A chill ran down his spine. Even when the so-called legendary alchemist they had encountered in Zaun had layered his voice over itself and sent it ringing, Enkrid had not felt this kind of danger raise the hair on his skin.
'This is.'
A threat. And elves, while they might speak a twisted truth, did not know how to lie.
The tone was beautiful, but a threat was a threat.
Ropord blinked a couple of times. The gap between the words and their meaning had thrown him for a moment. Still, he recovered quickly. Separating one from the other, he asked about the part that mattered.
"...The city?"
"Thanks to the experience of migration, the City of Kirhais gained the ability to break off part of itself and move it."
Sinar said it plainly, though a quiet pride colored her voice. Enkrid read the elf's subtle feeling and still could not quite understand why that was something to be proud of.
Either way, if he ignored Sinar's words right now, the forest city led by the Woodguard really would break off a piece of itself and follow him.
"Let's go together."
Enkrid answered. Sinar nodded.
At that, Esther, who had been resting in panther form, flipped once through the air in a neat flourish and became human. Even watching it happen right in front of him, it was hard to believe. Fur lengthened into a robe, white skin appeared beneath it for a moment, then was covered again just as quickly.
It was a sight only visible from exactly where Enkrid was sitting. Everyone else would have seen nothing more than the fur on her back becoming a robe.
"I'm sorry. I can't go with you, I'm busy."
"That's fine."
Krais had mentioned once that if something was going to happen, he would appreciate being told in advance.
That was why Enkrid had gathered everyone before saying anything. He had never intended to move with a large group.
Part of him had simply wanted to show everyone his resolve, and the other half was just doing whatever felt right.
'Three at most?'
He could handle the guide work himself, so counting the search for the Balrok and everything else, he would not need many people.
In the middle of this, he caught Krais's eye.
"You're not planning on taking me with you, are you?"
You're not that crazy, right? Tell me you're not.
That was what Krais said with his eyes. Enkrid took the jerky he was holding and threw it at him, displeased.
It was only a strip of jerky, but the one throwing it was a knight.
The jerky sailed through the air and smacked Krais square in the forehead.
"Ow!"
Krais was still asking if there was a hole in his head when Rem tossed his axe up into the air and spoke.
"I'm going too."
The best word to describe Rem lately was frustrated.
If his assault unit had been here, they probably would have been pressing their foreheads to the ground at Enkrid's feet, begging with everything they had.
Please, take us with you.
"Ilchul will burn its owner if it isn't used regularly."
Ragna was not an elf, so lying came naturally to him.
"Try taking after your father even halfway."
Enkrid called him out on it, but Ragna did not even pretend to listen.
He was going to follow no matter what excuse he had to use.
"I suppose this would be my first sortie since becoming a knight," Fell said, adding himself to the group.
"Right. Fighting a Balrok, of all things. Can't wait," Ropord added.
"Brother, my place is always at your side. And since the Lord seems to be watching over you right now, who else should go if not me?" Audin offered, in something close to a sermon. Teresa stopped humming and added, "I'll come too."
Ruagarne listened to everyone and puffed out her cheeks with a laugh. She had not said a word, but that Frog would absolutely be tagging along regardless.
Before, she had stayed behind because she wanted to revisit her own techniques and help Teresa. Or so she had said.
And she had told him that felt genuinely regrettable, but also genuinely fun.
"Coming back after a long absence and seeing how things have changed, that's interesting in its own way, and there's pleasure in picking apart how it all happened. But watching the process right there alongside someone is still the best feeling."
Frogs were a species that became intoxicated by desire. To turn away from that desire was not truly being a Frog.
Of course, what that desire looked like was different for every Frog.
For instance, Maelrun, now treated as a core member of the Gielpin Guild, did train, but brutal grinding was not what he was after. Steady practice, steady sparring, steady satisfaction. That was what Maelrun pursued. Enkrid respected that too.
Ruagarne was different. On the strength of a single desire, to stay at Enkrid's side and watch, she had endured and pushed through a grueling process.
She had turned away from nothing: no harsh training, no punishing regimen. He already knew from when they had sparred before he left just how far her abilities had grown.
'The Frog race has no concept of knighthood.'
And yet there was a reason they were called a naturally born warrior race.
Frogs had no ceiling. This was a theory Ruagarne had arrived at recently.
She said that peeling away just one layer of the limits an ordinary Frog felt revealed an entirely new world.
Shedding the fixed ideas carried over from the past and stepping into that new world.
"That is probably what separates me from those who showed outstanding ability."
The memory of Ruagarne's pale cheek as she said those words remained. Either way, she would absolutely be coming. Looking around, it turned out that meant everyone here was coming. That had not been what he expected.
"The Border Guard Standing Army is strong. Without the knight order it won't crumble overnight. There are no immediate threats either. Even if the Empire moves, Zaun is more or less on our side now, so the threat from the Empire can be held off to some degree as well," Abnaier said, laying out the connections between cause and consequence as clearly as ever.
"Still, you never know. What if Cultists who've been hiding somewhere suddenly show up with knight-level fighters?"
"If we're only talking about possibilities, anything can happen in this world. Think of everything that has been seeded around us up to now, Krais. We built the Safe Road centered on Border Guard."
This also meant that every rumor and piece of news spreading along the Safe Road was being gathered.
In fact, the Gielpin Guild had by now become an information hub planted outside Border Guard. At the lighter end it caught small rumors circulating through nearby cities, and at the deeper end it was picking up on troubling events happening recently in Nauril.
After exchanging a few more words, the two of them came to the conclusion that it was fine for Enkrid and everyone else to leave.
Where Krais was driven by anxiety, Abnaier fell into the trap of certainty. Together, they left no gaps.
Enkrid nodded.
He figured, why not bring everyone along.
Once the departing group was settled, his thoughts drifted to the demon that had faced Aoara. A being born to fight, swinging a sword and a whip wreathed in flame.
Just the thought of it sent a faint shiver up from the soles of his feet. To kill a single fragment of that thing, Knight Aoara had bet her life. And Enkrid wanted to see not the fragment, but the real thing.
Claiming he was not looking forward to it would have been a lie.
Rem looked at Enkrid and said, "He's got that weird smile on his face again."
Krais tilted his head. "The Balrok's nickname is War God? Seems like the wrong fit to me. It suits our captain better."
Sinar kept her usual smile and said exactly what she wanted to say.
"If not everyone was coming, the two of us could have gone off somewhere quiet together."
That was the night that passed. Enkrid planned to leave within two days at the most. That was the plan.
Right up until Aetri called for him the next day. He went to the forge, and the madman holding the hammer looked up with gleaming eyes.
"I've received good iron."
That was the first thing out of his mouth, no greeting, no preamble.
"...True iron?"
"That one I already used, and it failed. What I have now is a rare metal I've never seen before."
He asked where it had come from.
"The Rockfreed Trading Company brought it."
The color of the refined ingot looked ordinary enough, but Enkrid had a feeling he knew what it was. The same material as the metal he carried on him. Though it was not giving off that same crisp energy as before.
It was more like.
'Something got mixed in.'
He had worked that out from pure instinct. Put charitably, something had been added. Put uncharitably, it had been changed.
"No matter what I tried, nothing came to me except the shape, and then the moment I saw this I hammered at it for three days straight. I got a feel for it."
He looked like a young man falling in love for the first time, or a child tasting sweet fruit. A smile played at his face.
The excited Aetri said things Enkrid could barely follow, then gripped his hammer, straightened up, sat down in his chair, and looked him directly in the eye.
Enkrid thought the resolve he saw in those eyes was on par with any decent knight's.
Aetri's mouth opened.
"Breathe your Will into it."
An Inscribed Weapon was a weapon that carried a knight's Will within it. Inscribed into it, hence the name.
"I will make your weapon."
Those words made Enkrid sit down across from him.
"You kept your promise."
Aetri's plain reply came back.
"Of course."
Whatever smile he had worn was gone. Aetri set it aside and raised his hammer. He worked the bellows and fed more heat into the furnace, and hot air flooded the forge.
The assistant prepared various things and stepped outside. The Frog who made jewelry also cleared the space.
"Four hours a day is enough."
That was the time Enkrid needed to stay inside the forge, pouring Will into the work without pause.
A sword was not made in a single day. That was why Enkrid had pushed back his departure.
He found out where the metal had come from soon enough. He had sent word to deliver food to the Hidden Village, and they had brought something precious back in return.
He had not expected anything when he saved them. The fact that it had come back around like this left him with a strange feeling.
Four hours a day, watching the hammer clothed in flame strike the metal. Sitting still and watching, past memories surfaced one after another.
When had it all started?
"Enkrid, you were a genius."
Those words from a third-rate mercenary had been where everything began.
"Why do you want to become a knight?"
A question he had been asked more times than he could count.
"Just give it up already."
"Quit."
There had been a time when he was urged to stop at every turn.
"What do you think will change if you go?"
There had been a time when he clawed and fought to save someone.
"Damn it all."
There had been a time when he raged at the sky for failing.
He had worn a calm face on the outside, but inside there were times his heart was churning.
Tang.
The sound of the hammer rang through it all.
The hammering sounds tangled with old memories, mixed into them, then scattered them apart.
Enkrid knew how to move Will as he intended. Compared to certain knights who had not trained it properly, he was on a different level.
Having learned Restraint and Explosion in Zaun, he handled Will freely.
He even worked with Will that did not run dry.
"I'm not skilled enough yet, so you'll need to do this over and over," Aetri said, as if it were obvious. Enkrid did exactly that.
After spending four hours a day with Aetri like that, Enkrid found himself briefly worrying about what would happen after he left, and that worry led him to the training ground.
Suddenly having time on his hands made him want to get involved in the training.
Rem, watching him, said, "You just want someone to pick on, don't you?"
Clemen, who had been knocked down, was the one who greeted him. Officially she was the Madman Knights' only Squire.
There were a few others who were at Squire level in practice, but they had not been formally appointed yet.
"Just looking around for a bit," Enkrid said, and looked Clemen over. Her form was not bad. Probably the result of basic training in the Standing Army.
Clemen was also the unofficial training instructor for the guard unit.
Still, what was lacking was visible. Enkrid could see exactly what she needed right now.
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