WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 789: Kneel and Beg

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"Kneel and beg. The Balrok will not kill you."

So beg, and beg again.

Plead for your life.

That is how you escape today. Turn your back. Fighting head-on is not the only answer. Build up your strength, then face it again.

Would that not be a tactic as well?

As the ferryman spoke, his face seemed to change at least five times.

Dark green flickered within his black pupils, and faded gold occasionally glimmered beneath his hood. Yet his expression remained unchanged. He merely recited what he had to say in a dry tone.

It felt like reading a book written in stiff prose, the kind that listed facts rather than aiming to entertain. Enkrid thought the ferryman's words were reasonable.

"Will you let this today devour you? Seeing you get bitten by the dog that killed all its brothers and ran away is not a pleasant sight."

There were parts he did not understand.

Killed its brothers? Ran away?

Given the context, it sounded like an accusation directed at the Balrok.

But then, what was this about telling him to beg the very creature he had criticized?

The words did not quite add up, but considering the ferryman's goal, it was not all that strange.

'Escape today.'

More precisely, do not remain in this current today.

That was what the ferryman wanted.

Enkrid's curiosity had a mind of its own. Just as inspiration suddenly came to great artists, his curiosity worked the same way. Most of the time, he let whatever people said pass by without much thought, but sometimes something would suddenly catch his interest and make him ask about it.

"A dog that killed all its brothers and ran away? What does that mean?"

His curiosity only appeared when it concerned fighting, training, learning, or something that helped him achieve his goal. Of course, the ferryman had no way of knowing that thought process.

Even the ferryman could not peer through every corner of Enkrid's mind.

In truth, Enkrid could not fully understand his own heart either. People were simply like that.

In any case, Enkrid asked. The ferryman answered, his tone still rigid.

"It is not important."

The ferryman's lamp swayed faintly from side to side. With each small motion, violet light spread little by little, and the shadow before the ferryman stretched and shrank.

The ferry was roughly twice its usual size. This was not the first time Enkrid had seen it like this.

Recently, when he began training even in his dreams while reviewing what he had learned from three teachers who would not accept even a single Krona, the ferryman had enlarged the ferry for him.

One conclusion remained in Enkrid's mind. The ferryman did not want him to stop in a today where he faced the Balrok. His actions were more effective than saying it outright. Their meaning came through clearly.

Come to think of it, he had spent several years with this ferryman.

Moreover, they shared the greatest secret that no one would believe.

Enkrid's mind began to work. There was no need to stretch out time. Strictly speaking, this place was a mindscape, an inner world.

Thoughts here moved like flashes of light. Reasoning took place in an instant. Enkrid watched the tree of thought absorb water and grow.

If left alone, it would reach a conclusion on its own. He knew that from experience.

'The ferryman helps with training.'

The ferryman pushed him to get past the wall.

'Why?'

The moment the question arose, the answer naturally followed. No, he already knew the answer. This was the third time he had turned it over.

The ferryman hated a today with the Balrok in it. Why? Because this could never be called an enjoyable today.

In other words, it was not the today the ferryman wanted.

The today the ferryman desired was calm and peaceful. Battle could be part of it, but at least it would exclude this kind of desperate struggle.

"You will never get past it. If you are bound here for a hundred years, even two hundred years, this will be the end. It will become your final today."

The ferryman repeated himself. It felt as though he were interrupting Enkrid's thoughts. Enkrid listened quietly. To anyone watching, one side might have seemed to be pleading while the other remained at ease, regardless of their words or appearance.

"Mad prisoner, if you want to remain immortal, now is not the time."

Was it not the more desperate side that always had more to say?

After hearing it all, Enkrid raised his left hand, scratched the back of his neck, and answered calmly.

"Hm, no."

There was no hesitation in his answer, neither in his attitude nor in how quickly he replied.

"Then you mean to remain in this today?"

The ferryman asked again.

"Ah, that is not it."

Enkrid shook his head.

"You think you can get past this alone?"

The ferryman's words, conveyed through Will, layered into dozens of voices and rang through Enkrid's entire body. The river churned at those words, rocking the ferry.

Though it was a mindscape, this was a place where Enkrid could move his body as though it were reality.

Standing balanced on the rocking ferry, Enkrid's lips curved gently upward. A smile brimming with certainty appeared on his face.

"No."

That was his final answer. The churning river wrapped around the ferryman on the ferry. The ferryman's entire body turned into dark blue grains and scattered like beads, while Enkrid found himself floating upward, drawn into the blinking light above his head.

"You will have to prove your words."

The ferryman's voice lingered in his ears like an echo shouted from far away.

A moment ago, Enkrid had answered no. That answer held two meanings.

One was his resolve not to remain in this today. The other was:

'Why does the ferryman think I'm alone?'

He was not alone.

That was the thought.

Beyond that, impurities and naturally arising branches of thought extended on their own, met each other, and spun in circles like a snake biting its tail.

Enkrid skillfully gathered those thoughts into one and drove them toward a conclusion.

The ferryman's instruction to kneel and beg the Balrok ultimately meant that Enkrid should survive, even if it meant breaking his Will and abandoning the way he had lived until now.

So the ferryman was still the same. The proposal he had made in an earlier today was no different from the one he made now. No matter what today Enkrid faced, the ferryman only suggested a path of meaningless survival.

'Is that fun?'

Living through such a today held no meaning for Enkrid.

There was no enjoyment in it, and it would insult the dream he had nurtured since childhood, the dream of becoming a Knight, which he had partly achieved.

Death and life were always two edges of the same blade. Since he was the one walking upon it, he had to be the one who decided how to live.

And begging? That was far too passive. It meant leaving the choice to the Balrok.

Even if he survived that way, his heart would break someday. After pressing his belly to the ground and begging to live, nothing would remain within him.

And if the tower of Will he had built so far collapsed, what then?

To an observer, Enkrid might have seemed like someone who lived only for today, but that was not true.

He was always someone moving toward tomorrow.

Whatever the ferryman proposed, Enkrid had his own way.

"If you remain like this, you will be trapped in this today."

That was what the ferryman had said.

Enkrid understood what it meant, but if it was simply a matter of escaping today, he had found a way long ago.

He could not get past it alone? He accepted that as well.

Having crossed walls repeatedly, Enkrid's thinking had grown freer, and his understanding had broadened.

He had abandoned the idea that he had to overcome this alone.

A freer way of thinking accounted for various situations and showed him what path to take.

How had he learned to see the flow of battle through instinct?

It was because Abnaier, a hostage now sheltered at Border Guard and a genius strategist, had led him into a trap.

It became possible through repeating countless todays.

Experience had accumulated into a lighthouse of instinct, and its light still shone brightly around him.

'Repetition and experience.'

That thought led to another.

Then just how many todays had Enkrid repeated?

It was difficult even to count them. The fact that his mind had not worn away was enough for him to deserve the ferryman's acknowledgment.

In fact, part of the ferryman's self respected him for that reason.

Of course, Enkrid had no way of knowing the ferryman's inner thoughts.

After repeating today countless times, Enkrid's instincts had sharpened. If he became trapped in a today like this, he could see what lay ahead. A dark, pitch-black wall with no end stood before him, and he did not know how to move forward immediately, but he had naturally come to trust that if he endured, the lighthouse's glow would faintly guide him.

This was likely an additional ability the ferryman had not expected.

As light gathered around him, he arrived at today once more.

Faced with the today and reality he had experienced repeatedly, Enkrid simply reviewed what he had learned.

'How to use weapons.'

He applied what he had learned from the first teacher.

That included using physical weapons and tools, but also using the strength that had changed from before.

"When the power you possess changes, the tactics for using it change as well. Naturally."

Enkrid recalled Ruagarne's words.

The techniques of Donapha, the second teacher, also proved useful. With a single simple thought, Donapha removed every impurity. That was how Donapha swung the axe and pushed past his current limit.

And what Enkrid had learned from the third teacher, the single-edge, was a Will that changed with his mood and a method of breathing.

Enkrid repeated more than thirty additional todays after that.

At the end, he heard something strange from the Balrok. Strange from the Balrok's perspective, that was. To Enkrid, it was only natural.

-Is dying slowly your tactic?

Instead of answering, Enkrid smiled. He had just understood the difference between the Will shown by Ragna and the others, the Will displayed by the Balrok, and the Will he possessed. Only now had he adapted to it.

Until the very end, he tried to see whether he could win with this alone, but he lost.

The fight had been fierce, rough, and brutal, but it was merely a today that had passed.

It was a today no one else needed to know about, and it vanished like that.

But Enkrid knew. Those todays had accumulated, letting him clearly see the lighthouse's glow leading toward tomorrow.

That was why, at the start of the two hundred and twenty-sixth today, Enkrid looked at Rino and asked:

"Is this your territory, Teacher?"

There were lit places and dark places within the Labyrinth. And these beings lived here.

Counting only the number of todays, Enkrid had spent more than half a year in this place. During that time, he had observed his surroundings almost instinctively.

That was the conclusion he had reached.

They had territories of their own. Was the reason they retained some degree of self because of the Balrok's tolerance?

'No, because of its amusement.'

The Demon of Strife, which made fighting again and again its goal, confined them within the Labyrinth and made them challenge it.

Because that was its pleasure.

The Balrok's double, torn off in the form of fragments, occupied territories throughout the Labyrinth. It provoked intelligent races, drew out their abilities, and eventually hunted them down.

It had given those gathered there personal spaces.

Like private rooms within the Labyrinth.

They were not anything special, like rooms one might find in a large city's inn, merely spaces sitting alone within caves, but Enkrid understood that they were these beings' territories.

"...Hm? Guest, do you know something? But Teacher? That is an unusual form of address."

Enkrid had learned quite a lot, so that was what he called him.

"I know a little."

"Ah, I see."

Rino tilted his head from side to side and let his hands hang loose. It was a signal before attacking.

Without a word, Enkrid displayed the Will of a fortress wall. It was a provocation, daring Rino to break through. Rino's eyebrows twitched. His brow furrowed, and the corner of his mouth curled upward.

"Where did you pick up that petty trick?"

He drew one of his flame-trailing swords and took his stance. It was a posture suggesting he would charge the moment he overcame the Pressure.

It was not a poor stance, but Enkrid knew it was a deception.

If Rino had been one of the Madman Knights, he would have said this:

"You would be better off abandoning deception and focusing only on technique."

His discernment had sharpened, and while teaching Fell and Ropord, he had even guided Romen onto a new path. He had repeatedly taught and learned in between, selecting only what was most necessary and establishing it anew.

Enkrid could see the path Rino needed to take. Of course, there was no reason to say it. The opponent before him was an enemy, not someone to embrace.

'Not someone living, either.'

Footnotes:

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