WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Genius Knight of a Fallen Race ◈

Chapter 37: Human vs. Horse

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No one knew when the people of Horais had begun obsessing over breeding better horses.

Perhaps it was in the distant age when the Arman Empire still existed, when the powerful magical nation of the Alto Empire stood strong, or even further back than that.

The people of the plains had always striven to make their four-legged companions stronger.

Their efforts, which began before writing was even invented, eventually surpassed the realm of ordinary horses.

Unicorns, bicorns, kelpies, Pegasus...

For hundreds of years, they grafted any monster that looked even vaguely horse-like onto them, trying to somehow claim its power.

Their efforts finally bore fruit five hundred years ago, when they borrowed magical assistance in exchange for supporting the New Faith during its split from the Old Faith.

The Horais Warhorse.

So proud were they that they used their nation's name as is. These beautiful horses were stronger, faster, wiser, and tougher than any other breed in the world.

As if that were not enough, they were vicious enough to trample and bite even most monsters to death.

Naturally, something that formidable had to have at least one flaw.

Horais Warhorses were infamous for refusing to obey their owners' commands.

No, they usually did not even recognize anyone as their owner in the first place.

They considered humans no more than servants who brought them tasty feed.

The horse standing before Shan was no different.

It looked down at him with an arrogant, haughty gaze that seemed to ask, What is this little brat supposed to be?

“Your name is Awin from now on.”

Ignoring that attitude, Shan named a horse for the first time and tightly hugged its neck.

This one was on a completely different level from any horse that could simply be bought and sold.

He felt a little sorry for the black horse he had ridden for nearly a year without ever naming it, but...

“Whoa!”

Crunch!

Shan jerked his head back just in time. Awin bit down at the spot where his head had been a moment earlier.

It snorted as though disappointed, then turned its head and pretended nothing had happened.

Considering a horse's bite force, Shan's skull would probably have been crushed if he had not dodged.

“...What the hell?”

“Well, the ceremony is over, so I'll be going.”

The marquis quickly left after seeing that, and Roden hurriedly took the reins from the marquis's attendant.

Fortunately, Awin did not seem particularly attached to its former owner. It allowed itself to be handed over without resistance.

“It tried to bite my head off the second we met! This is supposed to be the greatest warhorse in the world!?”

“Taming a difficult horse is also part of a first-rate knight's skill. Well, maybe you'll grow closer over time...?”

Roden awkwardly tried to comfort Shan, who looked betrayed like a boy rejected by his first love.

After greeting several other knights, with Lugh being the most talkative among them, the two returned to the estate with Awin and the black horse Shan had used in the tournament.

Shan's old horse had enough courage not to be intimidated by most monsters, but even that horse was easily cowed by the Horais Warhorse.

“I'll be busy taming this one for a while.”

“You have some time before you carry out the princess's request. Still, I don't know if that'll be enough. Are you confident?”

“I have a feeling it won't be easy.”

Shan answered Roden's question with a quiet sigh.

He realized how badly he had misjudged things the moment they returned.

Taming Awin was not merely difficult. It was horribly difficult, nearly impossible.

The moment it arrived, it began causing trouble as if it disliked everything from the stable itself to the feed.

Every time it raised and slammed down one of its enormous hooves, a feed trough was crushed. When it rammed its head into a partition, it collapsed with a loud crack.

Even the brick outer wall could not withstand its hind-leg kick, and a hole was punched through it.

The other horses in the stable shrieked in terror and pissed themselves.

“What in the world...?”

“What kind of insane horse is this!?”

The stablekeeper and servants who had come to help stared in stunned disbelief.

At this point, was it really a horse, or some kind of monster?

What made it worse was that it was not crazed with excitement.

If anything, it looked so calm that it seemed cold. It wrecked the place as though it simply wanted to show off its foul temper, all while watching them with a mocking gaze.

“M-My stable!”

Even Kalion, whose face had lit up with joy at news of Shan's victory, covered his face in despair.

“Now I understand why a Horais Warhorse was offered as the prize in a jousting tournament. It was a nuisance they couldn't handle from the start...”

Watching from a short distance away, Roden muttered bitterly.

Come to think of it, the marquis had looked regretful, but also pleased to be rid of an annoyance.

They had clearly intended from the beginning to use an uncontrollable horse as a generous-looking prize.

If a knight the princes wanted to recruit had won instead of an Alto, they probably would have assigned an expert to handle it.

The servants watching from the back whispered among themselves.

“What do we do? Setting aside the fact that taming it will take more than a day or two, where are the other horses even supposed to sleep tonight?”

“At least it's summer. It would've been truly awful in winter...”

While everyone else stood there at a loss, Shan quietly watched Awin's rampage, then gave an order to the stablekeeper beside him.

“Prepare a saddle.”

“A saddle...?”

“Yeah.”

The stablekeeper could not understand what Shan intended to do with one in this situation, but obediently followed the order.

Ever since Roden had brought him here, the Alto boy had practically been treated as the youngest brother of the household. Now, he was someone even greater than that.

Awin had been causing chaos everywhere, but when Shan approached carrying a saddle, it stopped and looked at him.

Its posture seemed to say, See? I'm not an easy horse. Do you understand now?

Shan met its eyes and spoke in a calm voice.

“Yeah, you're impressive. How about we take this outside? This place is too cramped for you, isn't it?”

A horse could not understand human speech, yet Shan murmured those words as he put the saddle on its back and took hold of the reins.

Surprisingly, Awin complied and began walking wherever he led it.

Everyone else could only stare blankly as the boy and horse walked side by side toward the main gate.

Roden hurried after Shan.

“How did you tame that violent thing in one go!?”

“I didn't tame it. It just agreed to my proposal.”

“A proposal? What proposal?”

“A contest? It's hard to explain... You know, Master said something before, when they taught us how to care for horses.”

Among the things Sir Darkal taught during combat education was how to care for a horse.

A good warhorse was like a companion to a knight, so Darkal had taught them all sorts of ways to care for one properly. Of course, Darkal had retired and simply bought whatever horse was available whenever one was needed.

One of those methods was to quietly meet a horse's gaze.

A good knight could supposedly instinctively understand and empathize with what their horse wanted through that alone.

Awin was not truly his horse yet, but Shan felt that they understood one another as he looked into its eyes.

It was sick of being moved around like an object and forced to submit to these small, weak humans.

The only reason it allowed itself to be led wherever they wished was because it was not confident it could escape the enormous city humans had built.

In that situation, Shan had challenged it in a manner that was neither servile nor rude, and it had accepted.

Two creatures that could not speak to each other had communicated through small gestures and eye contact alone. It would not be an exaggeration to call it a new era of interspecies exchange.

“What... Even if it's a Horais Warhorse, you're saying a horse thinks that much?”

“Not exactly like that. It's more of a feeling. A feeling.”

As the two talked while walking, the capital's residents spotted them and widened their eyes in shock.

A warhorse whose entire body shone like metal had appeared in the middle of the main road. Of course they were surprised.

“Is that...?”

“It's Sir Shan! The winner of the jousting tournament!”

“Is that horse the prize he won? From Horais? So it wasn't an exaggeration when they said it was the most beautiful horse in the world.”

“But where are they all going?”

After finally passing through the city gate, Shan looked over the broad road before him, then turned toward Roden and the others behind him.

“This might take a few days, so go back and rest first.”

“A few days? What are you going to do?”

“That isn't for me to decide. It'll decide.”

As soon as Shan leaped onto Awin's back, it exploded forward with incredible strength in its legs, as though it had been waiting for that moment.

Rather than a living creature charging ahead, it looked like an arrow released after being drawn to its limit.

Everyone gaped as Shan vanished into the distance in an instant.

* * *

‘Fast!’

That was the only thought that filled Shan's mind when Awin began to run.

It was unbelievably fast.

It felt as though the whole world was being sucked backward by the overwhelming speed.

The wind blasting against his face made his eyes sting, and he could barely make out his surroundings.

Compared to its sprint, an ordinary horse's gallop was no more than a leisurely walk.

The horse Fional had ridden in the past definitely could not have been a Horais Warhorse.

‘If I fall off here, I'm almost certainly dead.’

As that thought crossed his mind, Awin seemed to realize that running alone would not throw Shan off. It suddenly leaped into the air.

His eye level changed in an instant, and his body floated as though freed from gravity.

“Urgh!”

Then came the dizzying fall.

Thud!

A jolt rang through his lower back as he slammed against the saddle. If he had not absorbed the shock as much as possible, he might have strained something.

‘It's vicious too...’

Awin continued racing along the roads beyond Hasra's walls, then veered off course and ran wildly across fields, mountains, and forests alike.

It did not care if branches scratched its beautiful body or left cuts on its skin.

Without caring about Shan clinging to its back, it acted as though it wanted to take in every bit of the outside scenery and run across it itself.

Shan thought he understood how it felt.

He had been the same when he first left Willow Vilalge and ran freely through mountains and fields.

The happiness of being able to enjoy an endlessly vast world however he pleased, of simply being free.

This creature, born and raised in Pendia thousands of kilometers from Shan's home, had probably never felt such freedom before.

He had not heard anything about its upbringing, but he could sense it instinctively.

Perhaps they had connected just by meeting each other's gaze because they were alike.

Shan pressed his body tightly against Awin's back and wrapped both arms around its neck.

Otherwise, he would have been flung away long ago every time it jumped.

After racing wildly for minutes, then tens of minutes, Awin suddenly plunged into a nearby river.

It was downstream from the river that ran through Hasra.

‘Hup!’

Just before going under, Shan inhaled as deeply as he could and tightly shut his mouth.

Even though he was not breathing, the water that forced its way into his nose carried a bizarrely foul smell.

It was probably from the waste dumped by the Magic Society and other mages while making all sorts of potions.

Or perhaps it was the stench of filth washed out through the capital's sewers.

Several minutes passed underwater, and Shan's lungs began to burn.

He desperately wanted to breathe, but if he did, he would not be able to hold out any longer.

Shan covered his mouth tightly with the hand not holding the saddle and endured.

‘Please, just a little longer...’

Fortunately, just as he thought he could not take it anymore, his head broke through the water's surface.

Awin had surfaced first because it could not hold its breath any longer.

Its large body meant large lungs, but it also meant it needed that much more air.

“Cough! Hack! Cough!”

As Shan greedily sucked in and expelled air, he noticed that Awin was also panting as it repeatedly filled and emptied its lungs.

Even while struggling to breathe, he laughed.

Perhaps it thought he was laughing at it. Awin bristled and began racing over land again.

Naturally, Pendia was still Pendia, even near its capital.

Minor monsters often leaped out to block their path, but Shan did not even need to act. Awin's attacks turned them into bloody pulp.

It was quite a spectacle to see Water Ghouls, nightmares to people living near rivers and seas, get bitten to death or trampled flat by a horse as they fled.

Their stubborn contest of endurance continued until the night had grown late and dawn was breaking.

By the time Awin was too exhausted to continue rampaging wildly, Shan was nearly spent as well.

They both looked comical, whitened by the foamy sweat from Awin's body.

‘I'm sleepy...’

Before he drifted off, Shan took out Thousand Forms, which he wore as a bracelet, stretched it out, then coiled it into a rope and tightly bound himself to the saddle.

As a metal rope made of true silver, it would never break under ordinary circumstances.

“Sleep well.”

Awin looked at Shan as though he was ridiculous, then dropped its head and went to sleep standing up.

Shan woke when Awin, which had woken first, shook its body to throw him off.

His defenseless body was flung away, but fortunately stopped because of the true silver rope connected to the saddle.

After pulling himself back onto its back, Shan returned Thousand Forms to its bracelet form.

It could not be helped while he slept, but relying on it when awake would have been cheating.

Now Awin did more than leap around to throw Shan off. At times, it rolled across the ground or rammed itself into walls in direct attacks.

Each time, Shan used his natural agility to move all around Awin's body or cling to the side opposite the direction of impact.

Naturally, he had no time to relieve himself through all this.

He could hold in the bigger need, but not the smaller one. Still clinging to its back, Shan urinated.

When a wet, warm sensation spread beneath the saddle, he could feel Awin recoil in disgust.

“If you hate it, surrender!”

At his threat, Awin snorted and leaped as though that was out of the question.

It rampaged in every direction, dived underwater, and beat monsters it encountered to death with its front hooves or bit them to death. Even when it rolled over to try and crush him, Shan did not yield.

After another full day and night passed, the exhausted Awin finally dropped to its knees and collapsed onto the dirt.

It took Shan several minutes to realize what had happened.

He had spent nearly three days starving while riding a horse that had been rampaging wildly, so he was half out of his mind too.

“...You lay down?”

The horse answered with a weak snort, as though it did not even have the energy to respond.

It was not like its earlier mocking snorts or furious roars. Anyone could understand the resignation in that sound.

“Hah, hahaha...”

Joy surged up from Shan's chest, and he burst into laughter before falling from the saddle and rolling across the ground.

Even though it had finally thrown Shan off, Awin did not run away. It only looked down at him.

Respect had replaced the arrogance in its blue-gray eyes.

“I won, right? You concede, man to man.”

Then, struck by a thought, Shan stood up, lifted Awin's tail, and looked between its hind legs.

“You were a girl. Fine, you concede, man to woman!”

He gave her rump a sharp slap.

Awin answered with a snort and an expression that seemed to say Shan was pathetic.

* * *

After making Awin submit, Shan rode her around the area until they found a nearby village, where he bought bread and milk.

The feeling of food entering his body after three days was indescribable.

“Ahhh...!”

The villagers exchanged confused looks, wondering who this strange outsider was.

His clothes made him look like a complete beggar, but the material itself was not just decent. It was expensive.

And his horse looked incredible at a glance.

Was he some runaway noble's child?

If this had been an ordinary rural village, it would not have been strange if they tried to kill him and take his possessions.

This was a civilized village not far from the capital of Hasra, though.

They had enough wisdom and conscience to understand that they should not harm a boy who clearly did not have ordinary status.

It was a fortunate thing.

For the village, not Shan.

“Thank you for the meal. Here.”

After finishing his feast, Shan patted his full stomach and handed several gold coins to the village chief.

That payment included not only Shan's meal, but also the enormous amount of feed Awin had eaten.

It was probably still more than the proper price, but what did it matter if Shan paid a little extra when she ate so well?

Though she kept a sullen expression, Awin eagerly stuffed down a meal of fine hay mixed with beans, oats, and rye.

With their bellies full, the man and horse left the village and raced northeast.

For the first time, Shan was not clinging on for dear life. As he experienced running in harmony with Awin, with each of them considering the other, he was amazed once more.

‘This is incredibly comfortable...’

Despite moving far faster than any ordinary horse, the saddle atop Awin's back was unbelievably comfortable.

Perhaps it was because of her unique gait. As long as he matched its rhythm correctly, it put less strain on his back and thighs than a relaxed walk.

It was absurd when he considered how horrible the last few days of clinging to her had been.

They repeated the pattern of racing until tired, then walking to rest. In the end, Shan and Awin covered in only two hours the distance they had raced over the previous three days and returned to Hasra.

Considering that it would have taken two days to travel it on foot, her mobility was absurd.

“Hey, you...”

“I'm back, Roden. Sorry I took so long.”

Roden, who had spent three sleepless nights at the Weavers Estate, could only gape at Shan and Awin returning together in perfect harmony.

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