WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 792: It'll Be Fun, Right?

──────

“You’re here.”

Enkrid said.

“You blocked it, Brother.”

Their words crossed. The moment Enkrid saw the Balrok’s kick, he crossed his arms and blocked it. He had not simply taken the hit. He had done it while using Refusal against the Balrok’s Pressure in real time.

And naturally, it was Audin who caught Enkrid when he came flying back.

Warmth spread from the hand bracing his back. It was thanks to Audin releasing his divine power.

“I’m not hurt.”

Enkrid spoke again.

“Looks that way. What kind of fun were you having while ditching us?”

Rem’s voice cut in from behind Audin. Enkrid caught an odd word in what Rem said.

‘Us?’

Had Rem ever used a word like that?

He had probably said it without thinking. Thinking back to their days as the troublemaker squad, it felt very strange, but it was no longer wrong.

They had spent enough time together that the word us suited them now.

Ragna stood beside Rem with his usual expression. Jaxon let his arms hang loose and narrowed his eyes.

He was sizing the opponent up. Knowing this was no opponent to underestimate, he was holding back for now.

That was how those two entered combat stance. Everyone, Rem included, and Audin in particular, fixed their eyes straight ahead, a faint light flowing from Audin’s hand.

Even by each person’s own standards, what stood before them would feel deadly.

The campfire moved as if alive, stretching long until it touched what had been Aoara’s shadow. The flame traced the shadow’s outline in a full circle, and a hand, horns, a head, and a chest studded with black crystals emerged from it as the figure rose.

It was like a crouching bear rising to its feet.

The Balrok had no memory of what had just happened, but something unusual had occurred for Enkrid. Using Audin’s hand against his back as support, he straightened himself and asked,

“You pinned me down with Pressure and attacked right away?”

Normally, the Balrok used its Pressure only to test opponents. This time, it attacked immediately. That was unexpected.

“-You throw questions at me right away, Mortal.”

The Balrok’s instincts were sharp. It immediately understood whom Enkrid’s abrupt question was directed at. Of course, Enkrid had known it would understand.

It was a face Enkrid had seen often enough to nearly grow attached to it.

He was at the point of reading a demon’s mood from its expression. Though to be fair, the Balrok’s expressions were rather simple and straightforward, so it was not especially difficult.

“When I’m curious, that’s how I am.”

The exchange between them was strange. One side, the human, spoke as though he knew the other well. The other, the one called the Demon of Strife, continued acting as though Enkrid were a stranger. Neither of them cared in the slightest.

“You two look close.”

Jaxon’s words got shorter when his mood soured. Like now.

“Is that so?”

Enkrid took the remark without concern. Audin kept his usual smile and let out a hearty laugh.

Jaxon had added his piece, but the others who had joined them were not particularly focused on the exchange. The moment they saw the thing rising from the shadow, they had all shifted into combat stance.

Let your guard down and you die. His skin prickled.

Anyone who could not read the atmosphere here had no business calling themselves a knight.

An ordinary person stepping in here would have had their heart stop or their lungs shrivel. That much pressure bore down on the surroundings. It had become a Cursed Ground and a Labyrinth, but even if they had met outside, the quality of the air would not have been any different. The momentum pouring from everyone gathered here was a weapon in itself.

And as though entirely free from all of it, the Balrok conveyed its will.

“-I came because I was called, though I expected nothing. But then.”

It did not use its vocal cords. It vibrated the air to convey its intent. Enkrid was used to it, but to the others, it must have seemed like another strange trick. Still, at this level, they could roughly grasp how it worked just by watching.

And even if they could not, none of them would care.

The Balrok’s mouth curled upward as it spoke, the flames inside its eyes spinning in quick circles. Enkrid had seen that expression countless times. It was the face it made when showing elation, amusement, and satisfaction.

He had watched the Balrok grin like that again and again. So he knew what it was going to say. If he could predict what someone was about to do, there was no reason to hesitate before striking first. Enkrid’s mouth opened before the Balrok’s.

“It’ll be fun, right?”

Before he knew it, Enkrid was wearing the same smile. He had not intended it. Anticipation and pleasure had simply mixed together and naturally shown on his face.

Enkrid had stolen the Balrok’s line, though in truth, it was a line Enkrid himself often used.

“-Yes. That was what I was going to say.”

The Balrok conveyed its will in return, completely unshaken. That was the kind of creature it was. Either way, Enkrid had gotten the words in first, so that was satisfaction enough.

Grind.

Sinar suddenly appeared beside Enkrid, ground her teeth, and stepped forward. Enkrid had been at the front, but now Sinar was ahead of him.

He saw her back. She was small in frame, but her presence was imposing when one considered what that body was capable of. There was resolve in the way Sinar stepped up, and it was not the kind of momentum usually seen from an elf. Elves tended not to show their emotions and maintained an attitude of quiet observation.

For one to step forward like this was truly rare. They said an elf’s Pressure did not take shape, but instead created a fragrance.

That was because elves used vital energy rather than Will, or so the explanation went.

The scent of the forest rose thickly. The elf wrapped head to toe in that fragrance opened her mouth.

“Who hit him? That thing? Tell me. I swear blood vengeance.”

Blood and vengeance were not words one expected from an elf. Even Jaxon looked caught off guard.

“Blood vengeance? From an elf?”

“I wanted to try saying it once.”

Sinar let the tension from grinding her teeth fade and said it lightly. For the first time in a long while, an elf-style joke unrelated to engagements or Enkrid had landed.

If someone asked why she was making jokes at a time like this, there was an answer. More precisely, Enkrid understood immediately.

Fire and a demon, those two things stirred Sinar’s old trauma. She likely needed to release some tension too.

“The part about vengeance was sincere.”

Sinar spoke again. In truth, separate from releasing tension, the current Sinar had forgotten wounds from the past and was merely glaring at the thing that had struck Enkrid.

‘How dare it hit him?’

That was the look in her eyes.

The stage was set. Enkrid had bought time from the start, hoping these people would arrive. They were the kind who would come shouting from far away, willing to be wounded if he was in danger. This plan began with preserving both his strength and theirs until they met here.

So the start was good.

Rem, Jaxon, Ragna, Audin, Sinar, and Enkrid, six in total, faced the Balrok.

Aoara had rolled to one side and was barely managing to lift her head. Enkrid had lived through several todays and knew that when the fight started this way, Aoara did not transform into the Balrok. Instead, she ended up sprawled to the side as a bystander.

As Aoara looked their way, Enkrid met her gaze and spoke in a calm, steady tone. Whether he was teasing her or facing a moment like this, his manner and voice were the same.

“Today is the last day.”

Resolve, will, belief, vow, all of these made Will stronger. Enkrid forgot that today would restart even if he died. He forgot the ferryman as well. He kept only one thing in his mind, reducing every complex thought to a single point.

‘Kill the Balrok.’

This was the battlefield built by the concepts he had expanded through repetition.

Did he absolutely have to bear all of this alone? Where did the boundary of being alone even end? Was the help these people gave him not also something he had built up over all this time?

If one looked inside Enkrid’s head, none of those complicated thoughts were there. Only a simple and clear will filled him completely.

‘If it can be done, do it.’

With the strength of others, together with his squadmates, he could take down the Balrok without having to beg. This stage had been built on trust, not calculation.

Enkrid’s mouth curved higher. His heart kept pounding. His Will stirred on its own. It would be a lie to say he felt no anticipation for what was about to happen.

In that respect, the word madman suited Enkrid without the slightest awkwardness.

Enkrid had died again and again, yet he felt no fear. He seemed like someone who existed simply because there was a fight to be had.

Now, who is the War God?

Enkrid’s appearance seemed to ask that question.

Of course, as the laws of the continent had always held, the one who won was always the answer.

Victor and loser, in the end, the living and the dead would be divided. It was no different from standing at the border between life and death.

A person smiling in a situation like this was like a single line jutting out from an otherwise perfectly symmetrical picture. That was Enkrid.

Whoosh.

As if readying for battle, the burning line running along the Balrok’s outline stretched sideways like a snake, then rose straight and rigid, its head held high, becoming something between a whip and a fire serpent.

Then a sword blazing with black flames appeared in its right hand. Dark fire rose from the skin of its hand and formed into a blade.

It was a skill that looked extraordinary every time. The Balrok possessed a technique for storing weapons within its body.

Enkrid did not envy anything else, but he envied that ability a little.

The Balrok moved into combat stance. Watching it, Enkrid laid out the tactics. There was no time to deliberate long, and even less time to gather everyone’s opinions and hold a discussion. So he kept it concise and forceful. That was also why his words came out as commands.

“I block, Rem throws, Ragna cuts.”

Of course, that alone would not make everything fall perfectly into place. The Balrok was not going to stand there and watch, either.

* * *

“Do you plan to memorize every pattern?”

It was during one of the previous iterations. The ferryman had asked abruptly. Watching what Enkrid was doing while drawing out time with three teachers, it must have looked like he was studying the Balrok’s fighting style.

But could he win by memorizing every pattern? That was the ferryman’s question.

Even with his thoughts separated and accelerated so his combat calculations came out ahead, the Balrok had casually broken the premise of those calculations.

‘One kick was enough.’

It had been like a kick from a new existence intervening from outside the battlefield. Why had it gone that way? The reason was simple.

‘The Balrok has more combat experience than I do. Both on the battlefield and in personal combat.’

It did not need to run combat calculations. It could fill those gaps with experience alone. That much experience had accumulated in it.

What did that mean?

Enkrid understood that simple combat calculations alone could not block every trajectory created by the Balrok’s sword, whip, fists, and feet.

The ferryman, speaking of patterns, conveyed his will like someone stating a fixed truth, like saying the sun would rise tomorrow morning.

“Whatever you do, you will break eventually. Endure and endure, and the end is the same. When that time comes, you will have no choice.”

Whether the ferryman meant to help or obstruct him was unclear.

To the ferryman, the future of the man called Enkrid looked pitch-black in two senses. One was that his road ahead would be that difficult. The other was that even the ferryman could no longer predict which today would come next, so it was dark in that sense as well. Why was Enkrid’s future no longer visible?

Because the record had already been broken, it could no longer be the subject of a wager. The breaking of the record alone had been enough to sway the hearts of many of the weaker ones.

“And what comes after you surpass it without begging? What if something worse comes next? You will break eventually. Even if you regret it then, nothing will change.”

Enkrid, who had been keeping his mouth shut while thinking over how to fight, looked at the ferryman’s empty pupils.

He did not know what answer the ferryman wanted, but his own answer was already decided. It was a will he had held straight since the first time he gripped a sword, and it had never wavered.

“That’s something I can think about when it happens.”

It was a simple and clear answer. The ferryman could not continue. One could say he was at a loss for words.

Would he refuse to sleep and not open his eyes in the morning because he did not know how tomorrow would turn out?

The future was always uncertain. No one knew how it would turn out. The ferryman did not know either. Not knowing was probably why he acted that way.

“If you’re scared, just watch from over there.”

Enkrid said it half as a joke, and the ferryman, unwilling to reveal his own fear, found himself briefly at a loss for words again.

“Insolent wretch.”

That was all he had left to say.

Enkrid was always the same. He simply gave everything he had to what was right in front of him. What he could reach with his hands, what he could do, what needed doing now, he devoted himself entirely to those things.

If he did not give his best right now, tomorrow’s Enkrid would live the same way. If that was how he intended to live, he would have remained in an unremarkable today from the beginning. Above all, he enjoyed the present moment. No one lived more completely in the now than he did.

Even within the broad bounds of the ferryman’s experience, this was a first.

Footnotes:

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