A Knight Who Eternally Regresses-Chapter 242: The daily routine hadn’t changed, but the things within it had

The daily routine hadn’t changed, but the things within it had.

‘Why isn’t he going?’

Edin Molsen wasn’t particularly bothersome. At first, he wondered if it was acceptable to beat him like this, but repetition has a way of dulling the edges, doesn’t it?

In other words, he came to respect the opponent’s relentless spirit, the spirit that didn’t know how to give up, rather than focusing on the fact that he was the son of Count Molsen.

In short, he had become absorbed in the act of beating him.

“Take it easy, would you? Moderately.”

Kraiss, unable to watch any longer, said this.

“He’s the one coming at me.”

It wasn’t just mindlessly attacking. It was a person who endlessly challenged and pushed forward.

How could he treat someone like that half-heartedly?

Enkrid couldn’t bring himself to do that. Given the path he had walked, it would be poisonous to treat his opponent with any indifference. It would be even more unpleasant.

For Enkrid, respecting his opponent was the easier, more comfortable way. Of course, that was his own perspective and method.

“Here.”

Again. Edin Molsen brought out a wooden sword. He wasn’t foolish enough to be charging in like this.

At least now, he wasn’t wielding a real sword. Initially, Enkrid had knocked him down without even drawing a blade, but that was no longer the case.

Of course, Molsen was now swinging, cutting, and thrusting.

Enkrid never lost his manners.

For him, manners meant not ignoring the effort his opponent displayed.

His manners were...

Bang!

Not sparing a single ounce of mercy, he struck Molsen’s head.

“Crack!”

A scream escaped as Enkrid’s thrust to the solar plexus almost knocked him unconscious.

“Brother!”

Molsen’s younger brother, who had been watching, was startled. That was only at first.

As I said before, repetition dulls the senses.

“Are you alright?”

By now, Edin’s younger brother wasn’t shaken at all, even when his older brother collapsed.

If Enkrid had intended to kill him, he would have done so long ago. Even if he’d meant to cripple him, he would have done it by now.

They had already sparred more than twenty times.

“Well, he’s back again? His body’s tough, at least.”

In a way, Rem might be considered Edin’s enemy. After all, didn’t he kill his own brother?

But Rem didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

Certainly, his face was as tough as steel. Was this what all barbarians were like?

A pointless thought. It wasn’t important. Whether his face was thick-skinned or not, Rem was still Rem.

He was a monster who wielded two axes with incredible skill.

Enkrid was more than satisfied with that monster’s abilities.

“I’ve loosened up.”

At Enkrid’s words, a smile appeared on Rem’s face.

“I’ll say it again...”

“You’re saying you might die?”

Even though his words were cut off, Rem still smiled. His wide grin met Enkrid’s reply.

“You might die too.”

“Damn, I don’t normally curse, but did you know that? I get the most excited when I can knock the captain’s jaw off.”

Enkrid agreed with that, both mentally and physically.

He truly empathized with it.

“Sounds like me.”

“...Do you have a habit of hitting your own face?”

Enkrid’s gaze fixed on Rem, who met his piercing blue eyes with his own gray ones.

Rem hadn’t been idle either.

If Enkrid had learned the Beast’s Heart from him, Rem had also learned something.

Now, looking at it, his skills had improved drastically. His tongue had become a weapon that could twist one’s mood and raise their blood pressure.

“That’s right. I have that habit.”

Rem frowned the moment Enkrid admitted it.

“Are you admitting it here?”

The principle is that there’s always someone above the one who’s leaping.

Ignoring the mental blow, bringing out an unexpected response from the opponent is the key to verbal sparring.

“Are you just going to keep talking?”

In response to the question that would end the verbal duel, Rem’s axes cut through the air again. Both of them.

Mad Platoon had done some work in the meantime. Asking for a new axe from the blacksmith for supplies was nothing.

The difference this time was that, whereas Rem had previously never cared about weapons, now he was particular about everything—the balance, the weight, everything.

“I can’t make it that precise.”

“Well, then there’s nothing we can do about it.”

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Rem didn’t seem to mind the blacksmith’s words. It seemed he wasn’t that concerned.

But what mattered was what he could do with the new axe.

Clink.

Enkrid extended his sword and struck the axe blade lightly.

“Stop messing up my axe.”

Rem mumbled as he rushed at him. It felt like his body grew larger in an instant. So fast and daring.

A sudden realization hit.

Whose was the Beast’s Heart originally?

In terms of boldness and audacity, Rem was second to none.

Enkrid made a vertical slash with his sword.

It was also a lightning-fast strike.

Swish.

The sword sliced through the air.

Rem’s body blurred. The speed-enhanced axes became beams of light and struck. One from above, one from below.

At first, Enkrid had been hit by the axes, which curved like a whip.

When he endured that, he was struck by a fatal blow, like a light beam.

Now?

Thwack!

Enkrid swung his sword up and down. The blade rippled like a wave, bouncing off the two strikes.

The Wave Crossing technique with the sword.

He had learned it from watching a rapier master and refined it through shepherd Pell before completing it while facing Rem.

Rem didn’t mind the blockage. The moment it was blocked, he threw one axe into the air. Then, holding just one axe, he charged.

Unconventional, daring.

Strange and bold.

That was Rem. To summarize, Enkrid lost.

“That was close.”

“Is it?”

“Rival.”

Should he be satisfied with that comment? Should he?

No, there was no need. Enkrid had learned something new today.

To be precise, he had realized what he lacked.

From the sense of the blade to the sixth sense, and the awareness of evasion.

Jaxon had called it "Sense Technique."

He hadn’t been lazy about honing that, but strangely, it had become his weakness.

“I was too sensitive.”

He had been too focused on the axe Rem threw into the air. Should he have ignored it?

In the end, after Rem kicked the axe down, accelerating it to strike his shoulder?

“Choice and focus.”

He thought it through. Recalling and realizing.

It was a familiar process.

This was Enkrid’s routine. The difference now was his ability to learn.

It was similar to when he first recognized talent. If the Beast’s Heart, Sense Technique, the focus of one point, and the Isolation technique were like that,

Then this time was the same.

“Rejection.”

Just rejection, but it had been an experience of Will. That experience gave Enkrid a different perspective.

What is a genius? It can’t be explained. For them, everything is natural. It seemed he had gained a piece of that naturalness.

Even now.

After his defeat, the process of reflection and realizing his mistakes, the speed at which he identified what was needed—this was different from before.

Enkrid didn’t consciously realize it.

He was just doing what he always did.

Of course, it was visible to everyone, including Rem.

“Will, huh?”

That chaotic commander, Will.

“Wow, really.”

A chick who never knew when it would die had turned into a chicken with a steel beak.

No, now, it couldn’t even be called a chicken anymore.

It had become a beast.

Hiding his admiration, Rem spoke.

“The damned Count’s son. He’s hiding something, isn’t he? Looking at him acting like this.”

“Is that so?”

Already lost in his own thoughts, Enkrid didn’t pay any attention.

No, even if he heard, he would have ignored it.

Hadn’t everyone said something?

“That brother is hiding something inside.”

So said Audin.

Jaxon also made a gesture of annoyance, and Kraiss even came up with several hypotheses.

“The reason he’s here? I think it’s one of two things. One, the Count might be eyeing the captain, and two, he’s trying to find the captain’s weakness.”

Here is a faithful translation of the provided passage from A Knight Who Eternally Regresses:

In reality, Kraiss had felt something similar from Edin Molsen’s perspective. A gaze that seemed like surveillance or perhaps an investigation.

Enkrid partly agreed with that.

Molsen’s guards also showed a similar look, but what mattered to Enkrid wasn’t their gaze.

Should I drag it out?

The guards had never fully shown their skills. Sometimes, their eyes would shine with a deadly glint, and Enkrid had hoped to see more, but...

He had ultimately held back. He didn’t fully display his abilities. He never raised his momentum to a dangerous level.

“That guy knows what he's doing.”

Rem said that the guard had also stepped into the realm of Will.

So, at the very least, he was on par with Enkrid.

Anyway, after that, the guard had refused every sparring request.

“I’m just Edin Molsen’s bodyguard.”

Then why had he challenged him before?

It was a test, an exploration, an assessment.

For what purpose?

Enkrid thought for a moment whether he needed to figure that out.

There was no real need to.

That’s why he ignored it. Even when Edin Molsen looked at him with that strange gaze, he ignored it.

When his younger brother stared at his face with a peculiar look, he ignored it.

When the guard occasionally lingered, he ignored it.

When Jaxon suggested subtly that it might be best to get rid of him if he was a bother, Enkrid still ignored it.

However, when Edin asked for a spar, Enkrid always gave him a proper response.

So, a few months had passed since Edin Molsen had remained in the territory, and now the cold weather made it inevitable to mention how chilly it was.

Snow seemed about to fall soon.

In that time, a few changes had occurred.

“I’m Teresa the wanderer.”

The half-blood giant often muttered to herself, speaking in a way that was barely audible.

It was fine during the day.

It seemed like a resolution, a self-affirmation.

But at night, when she spoke in her sleep, it came out as a mumble drenched in cold sweat.

When hearing her mutter like that, Audin would quietly place his hand on her forehead.

“May you sleep like the ashes that have settled.”

The war god was the embodiment of burned ashes, and those who followed him would represent that.

A prayer would follow.

It was an odd sight, though, a disciple of the war god, with a hand resting on the forehead of the socialite, offering prayers.

But Teresa never showed any displeasure after waking. She would just blink her eyes, glance at Enkrid, and then fall asleep again.

It had become a familiar routine.

There were many other changes in the daily life as well.

Dunbakel had agreed to do something else after being beaten by Rem, and the reason was Rem’s coercion.

“Payment for instruction is necessary.”

Rem insisted that since she had taught Dunbakel, it was time to pay her back.

Dunbakel never mentioned that she hadn’t wanted any of this process.

In fact, she had said to Enkrid:

“What’s with that barbarian?”

It was a difficult question to answer.

“A madman? Someone whose head is broken? A noble killer? An axe murderer? A crazy axe-wielder?”

Too many things came to mind to choose from.

Fortunately, Dunbakel didn’t wait for an answer.

“I’ve gotten better.”

When Enkrid faced Dunbakel directly, he could confirm that her words were true. In other words, Dunbakel wasn’t insulting Rem but was genuinely curious.

“Improved?”

When she was hit hard on the thighs with the flat side of a sword, groaning in pain, Dunbakel had nodded, her eyes watering slightly.

“Yeah.”

She had improved. To the point that she was unrecognizable. Was this the level for all beastkin?

Or perhaps it was something to do with the legendary golden eyes?

It was hard to say. And Enkrid didn’t care.

He felt her gaze and looked in that direction. He saw the golden eyes.

She was currently thinking of Enkrid as a monster.

After enduring Rem’s violence, she felt confident she could defeat her previous self, even if there were two of her.

But Enkrid had gone further in that time.

“A genius.”

She was mistaken, but it wasn’t her fault. Anyone would have thought the same.

Above all, Will, part of Will.

She realized it then.

The willpower that belonged to knights, the exclusive domain of those with knightly strength.

That change had descended on Enkrid.

Watching Enkrid, Ragna realized that it was time to fill the gaps in his own skills.

He had recognized it before but had never had the motivation to do anything about it.

Now, Ragna took action.

“Kraiss, I want a two-edged sword.”

“Do you think I’m someone who will just get it for you because you say you want it? If that’s what you think, then you’re right.”

Kraiss, who had been counting the coins in the Crona pouch handed to him by Ragna, showed a proper attitude toward Crona.

Ragna now held a sword.

It wasn’t sharpened, and its size and shape were similar to a bastard sword, but its weight was several times heavier than a normal sword.

And with that sword in hand, Ragna slowly began to swing it.

There was no speed. The movements were slow, clumsy, and deliberate, each action carried out with intense focus. He spent more than half the time his eyes were open doing just that.

A huge development. Anyone who knew Ragna would be surprised to see this.

Enkrid spent most of his time training, but wasn’t this the same lazy Ragna?

Even though it hadn’t been half a day, the sight of him training like that was astounding.

Returning to the present, Rem asked Dunbakel for Crona.

Dunbakel agreed without complaint.

“Go fetch some Crona.”

Recently, groups of monsters and magical creatures had been stirring around the area more than ever.

It was winter. Naturally, this was to be expected.

When food became scarce, the monsters would grow bolder.

“It looks like snow is coming.”

Kraiss said as he cut Ragna’s hair.

Enkrid silently gazed at the sky. The dark, cloudy sky was beginning to cover the horizon.

Just a little colder, and the demon’s excrement would be falling from the sky.

Well, last year, he had struggled to clear the falling snow.

But now...

“Training platoon, assemble!”

This single command was enough.

Life went on, even after the rapier master had left.

The routine hadn’t changed, but what was inside it was slowly transforming.

Edin Molsen had become a long-term resident, and during that time, the guard had left first, claiming he had business to attend to.

It was a quiet goodbye with no formal farewell.

Winter had arrived, and the first snow seemed just about to fall.

Dunbakel had gone out for a monster extermination request.

Finn, who had been wandering outside for a while, had joined the independent platoon and was now under the command of the Fairy Platoon leader.

“Can I leave?”

She seemed more energetic leaving than she had entering, which could be considered a good thing.

“Go ahead.”

Enkrid replied casually.

There was no reason or need to stop her.

Teresa entered, and Finn left.

It was one of those days where the routine didn’t change.

“Independent Platoon Leader, you’re needed!”

Late in the afternoon, while he was sweating and swinging his sword in the winter cold, a messenger arrived.

“They said it’s urgent.”

Enkrid immediately headed for the battalion commander’s office.