WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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Chapter 786: Reason and Emotion

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Amid the vast currents of thought, Enkrid drew out one of his strengths.

An overwhelming volume of Will.

'Ousque.'

It was a name meaning Will drawn from a well that never ran dry.

That, too, was a weapon. A weapon not everyone possessed.

Even Ragna, a genius blessed by heaven who had stepped into an especially rare realm, did not have it.

'That was why I had the advantage in a fight.'

He had felt it while sparring with Rem and the others. No, he had put it into clearer terms now.

When he fought Count Molsen, Enkrid had also learned endurance-based tactics from the opponents he faced after fighting the half-knight Liervart. That was how he fought, pressing forward with Will that never ran dry.

"Why aren't you using what you have?"

Ruagarne had said it to Enkrid countless times while teaching tactics.

"Everything you can use can become a weapon. Hone it. You should think of even your face as a weapon. Expand the concept. Don't narrow it down and trap yourself in a tiny well."

She was no Knight, but she was a Frog devoted to tactics. Her words carried weight. At least, that was how Enkrid heard them.

'Everything is a weapon.'

So that was what he did. Whether sparring with allies or fighting enemies, he led with Will that never ran dry.

'But I can't overwhelm the Balrok in a battle of endurance.'

The Balrok had lived for a very long time. Naturally, its Will would not be lacking either.

'Volume won't work.'

Then what about deciding it through change?

He had learned how to accelerate Will in Zaun.

It was a technique that damaged the body, but the tougher the body, the greater its ability to endure.

'Endure.'

It was the collective term for techniques of enduring suffering.

If Assimilation originated with the elves, Endure originated with monks.

Audin had said that training the body was the foundation of Endure. What if he endured with a hardened body and Endure, then used point-burst?

'I'll decide it through Will Transference.'

He would decide it in an instant, not through calculation. And if he used the Balrok's carelessness as well?

'I'll put everything on the first sword stroke.'

What did he need to do for that?

'First, its Pressure.'

The Balrok gauged an opponent's strength through Pressure. So he had to cast off that Pressure in an instant. That was the prerequisite for attempting to decide the fight in a single moment.

"And what are you?"

It was the fifty-sixth today, and after passing Donapha, this was his third opponent. The swordswoman whose specialty was a single-edge and nimble movements cocked her head as she asked.

The moment Enkrid met her gaze, single-edge sprang back like prey spotting a predator and opened the distance at once.

Ching!

She drew her sword as she retreated, wariness plain in her eyes.

'That bastard's eyes.'

Her pupils trembled faintly.

Enkrid's blue eyes resembled a lake. Except it looked as if a volcano had erupted beside that lake, making it boil.

If Rem or the others had seen him, they would have said, "His eyes have gone crazy again."

Once he had decided on a course of action, he carried it out doggedly. That was one of Enkrid's defining traits.

Single-edge was merely an opponent he had to pass by.

"I'm a little busy."

He spoke and rushed forward.

"...Tsk!"

The single-edge fighter held her breath and went back on the attack. If she retreated here, she had no chance of winning. She knew her own strengths well.

Rather than being driven onto the defensive, she had to maintain the offensive.

Kagangagangang!

She ran forward again, dragging the tip of her single-edge along the ground. The floor was a mixture of stone and dirt. As the sword tip scraped across a rock, sparks flew.

It looked as though she were rushing in trailing sparks. The instant they collided was easy to anticipate. So was what had to be done then.

Single-edge focused.

They looked as though they would meet head-on, but they did not. The owner of the single-edge was caught off guard for an instant.

'He stopped?'

Enkrid, who had been charging at high speed, stopped dead. It was such a sudden halt that it almost created the illusion that his body was still rushing forward.

Blood flowed from Enkrid's nose as he stopped. The blood spattered forward in droplets. Of course, that was hardly worth noticing.

Single-edge could not stop. Both the Will she consciously directed toward cutting down her opponent and the Will moving in the realm of the unconscious were exerting their full strength.

If she stopped here, she would not end up with only a nosebleed.

Kak!

The single-edge, trailing sparks, accelerated by using the friction from scraping across the ground. The blade, swung with the earth as its scabbard, split the air and flew in, leaving sound behind.

Enkrid, who had stopped so suddenly, ducked, stepped forward, and swung his sword at the same speed he had possessed before stopping. It looked as if both of them were rushing at each other with their swords extended.

'How?'

Clang!

After seeing a sky-blue serpent strike her sword, single-edge saw it crawl up her arm and bite into her throat.

The serpent cut through her collarbone below the neck, split her heart, and slipped away.

Black soot lingered in her eyes. She was on the verge of death. The last thing she saw was Enkrid swinging his sword through the empty air a couple more times.

At that sight, strength rose within her where there had been none. Single-edge spat out black fog and spoke with all her might.

"Kyaah, you used me for training?"

Black fog surged from the wound the sky-blue serpent had carved and fell to the ground in clumps.

Enkrid heard that often enough that he did not even nod. He ignored her. She had said it more than thirty times over the fifty-odd todays.

Single-edge was sensitive to being ignored. It was a weakness in her personality. He had seen this woman more than fifty times.

As time passed, their weaknesses became clearer. Ignoring what she said, Enkrid only reflected on the short exchange that had just taken place.

'Control of Will.'

He had focused not on point-burst or line-burst, but on control. After stopping, he immediately switched to point-burst.

The speed of his Will changed in an instant. Even a horse had to keep running to gain speed, but Enkrid had swung his sword at high speed straight from a standstill.

His arm trembled.

No matter how well-trained his body was, doing something like this naturally placed strain on it. He could not cut down a thousand people without taking a breath or feeling even a hint of soreness in his arm.

Reinforcing his body with Will and training it until he became a Knight did not mean he had stepped beyond the bounds of humanity.

The same would be true even for a Giant or an elf.

In any case.

'Learned one thing, Odd-Eye.'

He had tried it because it reminded him of how Odd-Eye had freely stopped and accelerated back at Border Guard.

The impression had been so strong that he had called Odd-Eye Indomitable instead of Odd-Eye.

He had originally given Odd-Eye that name, but his tongue had grown accustomed to calling the horse Odd-Eye.

Odd-Eye had merely snorted upon hearing the name Indomitable.

Its attitude seemed to ask why he was bringing up that name.

Anyway.

'It lets me start by inducing the opponent to lower their guard, then doing something outside their expectations.'

That was his conclusion.

The sword strokes that followed were a rough imitation that mixed various movements while matching the fire serpent called Salamandra.

A real blade could not become a whip.

The sword's trajectory had merely changed so quickly that it created that illusion in the opponent's eyes.

So Enkrid had accelerated twice just then.

Once when he moved his body, and once again when he swung his sword.

'Point-burst twice.'

More precisely, it was embedding point-burst within line-burst.

No wonder his forearm ached. He could only manage this much because he had trained repeatedly with Audin. Otherwise, the muscles in his arm would have torn.

Just as his thoughts never stopped, neither did his feet. Enkrid moved forward. The darkness seemed to swallow him, but even the darkness of the cave had become an ordinary road to him now.

There was no fear. No dread. He had merely decided what to do and wanted to train and test it as soon as possible.

"...Oh, you're here. But what's with that look in your eyes? Why are you excited?"

Aoara noticed and asked.

Enkrid approached Aoara, who sat beside the campfire.

"Do I look that way?"

"Yeah. Anyone could tell."

"Things have been well, and Romen..."

Enkrid reflexively began saying the words he needed to deliver. Aoara had to hear this story before she called the Balrok.

Otherwise, the conversation would drag on. Enkrid spoke a little faster than on previous todays.

"Did you always talk like this? It sounds really obligatory and formal."

Even in death, Aoara's intuition was sharp.

"Ah, is that so?"

Enkrid nodded.

"No, um, yeah. Be careful."

Wings spread wide from her shadow. Seeing them, Enkrid smiled without realizing it.

That subtle smile might have provoked the Balrok.

-Was this one someone who wanted to die at a demon's hands?

It was no different from asking why there was a lunatic here when it had answered the summons.

The one who had called it was not being crushed beneath its presence. Instead, he was smiling.

The Balrok had seen many unusual and extraordinary intelligent beings.

Those who laughed just before death, and even a human born in a human body who had defeated it.

And that last one had been recent, in terms of time.

Among all the intelligent beings it had encountered, the first impression left by the one standing before it was unmatched.

He smiled the instant he saw it?

Then he spoke.

"Try it."

Enkrid provoked it out of habit and adjusted his grip on his sword.

'It starts with casting off the Pressure.'

In only three todays, Enkrid had found the path for how to fight the Balrok. Expanding his thoughts had become natural to him now. And he had experienced more than fifty todays. He had enough experience.

Instead of answering, the Balrok spread its Pressure first. Was it saying it would not even associate with someone who could not overcome this much?

That was rather interesting.

And thinking about blocking that Pressure made it even more interesting.

Before the Balrok even displayed its Pressure, Enkrid had already shaped the Will of Refusal.

Could effort alone catch up to genius?

The time spent seeking the answer to that question had accumulated, and everything accumulated in that way had become a sturdy fortress wall within Enkrid.

A high, solid fortress wall, born of Enkrid's oath to protect what lay behind him.

That was the vow he had wanted to uphold since becoming a Knight.

A vision appeared before his eyes. A solid wall built of sky-blue bricks blocked a burning chain. Thud. The spark-filled chain bounced away and drooped onto the ground. Should he call it the wall of Refusal?

Or armor forged from accumulated time?

Or should he say that because he had never broken, it had never crumbled?

-You keep smiling.

Even though its Pressure had been blocked, the Balrok showed no surprise. From its words, Enkrid realized that he was smiling.

At this point, Enkrid really was crazy.

Viewed rationally, there was nothing enjoyable about this.

But.

'Am I a rational person?'

According to Krais, he was intelligent.

'Doesn't matter.'

There was neither time nor reason to dwell on such things. From the moment he faced the Balrok, his thoughts had split apart to prepare Breaker. He brought them together.

He would stake everything on a single sword stroke.

'Looking at only one point.'

Focus Point.

He needed only one thought, wholly devoted to one thing.

It might look like gambling. And being able to do this might seem possible only because he repeated today, but that was not true.

Enkrid had never let any day pass carelessly. He had always acted as though today were his last.

'Even if I die.'

He would accomplish what he had decided to do, then die.

He would die while walking the path he had chosen.

So it did not matter if today did not return. He did not think of the today the ferryman called a curse, but which had become a blessing to him. His resolve was always high. Even the Will he had just steeled settled wholly into his sword.

Chiriririririring.

Duskforge's blade emerged, scraping against the rim of its scabbard.

The amusing thing was that the Balrok's lips curled upward as well. It could easily fight by crushing its opponent with its Pressure. It had a means of fighting easily.

But it did not.

Instead of its innate Pressure, it used its hands and feet. It was not a rational judgment, but an emotional act.

In other words, the Balrok was no different from Enkrid at that moment.

Both closed the distance with crooked smiles. Enkrid moved while dragging his boot soles across the ground, while the Balrok strode forward with its Wings spread wide. That was fortunate for Enkrid.

Wings hindered sudden movements. The moment their membrane met wind resistance, invisible shackles would form around its ankles.

-Ah, this is why I can't stop fighting.

Unable to contain its delight, the Balrok released a mental wave. Enkrid felt the same way.

Footnotes:

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