A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Sacrifice is inevitable in war.

It's just something you can't avoid.

Like giving up a knight to take a bishop, trading a bishop for a rook, then sacrificing that rook to take the queen.

Victory without sacrifice was always a distant dream.

That's why Finn entered this mission prepared to sacrifice herself.

That was her role in this battle.

At least, that's what she believed—and she thought it only natural.

'If some wandering bard turned this into a tale, what would I be?'

A fallen soldier in a battle that ended in victory for her side?

Just one sentence like that—and she'd be one of the dead names inside it.

If the storyteller was talented, they might include more vivid accounts of the ranger unit's actions, but one thing was certain:

Finn had accepted the possibility of death.

Sacrifice was inevitable, so someone had to take on that role—and this time, it had just happened to be her.

That's what she resolved.

That's what she believed, when she recognized it as the end.

'Huh?'

For a moment, she was speechless.

Finn blinked.

Even so, if an attack had come, she would've reacted—training was ingrained in her body.

But her brain had definitely frozen up.

What the hell is this?

Something happened that simply didn't exist within her understanding of the world.

Was it a dream?

No, it wasn't.

The pain radiating from the wounds all over her body reminded her this was real.

Blood was running down her forearm from the gash across her shoulder—it stung and burned.

It all felt too real.

Then what the hell was this guy?

Naturally, her eyes drifted to Jaxon.

Her subordinates were doing the same.

At some point, the swarm of fairies they'd been fighting had vanished, аnd in their place stood one member of the Mad Squad.

'Reinforcements?'

It didn't feel like just one person had shown up.

More like: how is this even possible?

This was the Pen-Hanil mountain range.

If someone had sprinted here to close the half-day distance, the journey should've left all kinds of ruckus in their wake.

The place should've been swarming with beasts and monsters drooling like they were in heat, chasing after the runner.

And that wasn't all.

The quiet, suffocating killing intent the fairies had exuded was completely gone.

It's not like those fairies had suddenly discovered inner peace and walked off to hug trees.

No—they'd obviously all met the Reaper and had a nice long chat with him.

'He killed them all... in that short amount of time?'

Enemies that we could barely handle?

And the insane part wasn't even that he'd killed them.

It was that he'd done it without a trace.

No noise, no chaos, no mess.

That's what should've happened. That's what made sense, by her calculations—by her capabilities.

But this man had either fallen from the sky or risen from the earth.

He just showed up—and cleaned up everything.

Just like that.

New events had occurred outside Finn's field of awareness, unfolding one after another.

She had only stopped swinging her sword when her breath caught and her limbs started to tremble.

Had she kept moving, she wouldn't have had the time to think.

But now that she'd stopped, her eyes began taking in visual information, and her brain started processing it.

Finn felt dissonance.

And yet, she overcame it.

Well-trained soldiers do what they must—no matter the moment.

Otherwise, how could you knowingly charge into the front lines, certain of death?

Years of training—specifically, the hellish drills under Audin and Silence—had tempered Finn's mind to accept the situation for what it was and extract what needed to be done.

'So... is this a bad thing?'

Of course not.

"The enemy commander carried a bow.

The fairy unit fought in an unfamiliar style.

I believe this group is not the full force."

She spoke the necessary report.

Jaxon didn't reply.

He just stood there silently.

His breath was so quiet she couldn't even hear it.

Though he faced forward, it strangely felt like he was watching her.

From her vantage point, she could only see the back of his head—yet still, it felt that way.

***

"I hope no one on our side dies."

Enkrid had said that.

And Jaxon hadn't thought it was an unreasonable request.

If it didn't work out, so be it—but he could at least try.

If the battle could be decided by elite skirmishes without full-scale engagement, it was doable.

If they fought only when necessary, only in the right moments, then allied casualties could be kept to a minimum.

It was a calculated possibility.

Of course, the idea of not losing a single person seemed a bit much.

"This is war, isn't it?"

The goal felt so absurd, he couldn't help but push back a little.

"Yeah. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out."

Enkrid had answered lightly.

The tone was easygoing—but the determination behind it wasn't.

In essence, Enkrid was saying he wanted no one to die in a war.

How insane was that?

And yet, that was his plan.

Even if he couldn't do it himself, he was going to make it happen.

The resolve was plain in his voice.

'Well, he did make it this far doing nothing but crazy shit.'

For Enkrid, this was just more of the same.

Jaxon had decided to play along.

It felt a bit ironic, really—him, a master of killing, stepping up to save people.

But he'd made that choice.

He had even modified Geor Dagger with that in mind.

"Is it greedy to ask for both?

Can't we win without killing anyone?

Why not?

Why the hell not?"

That's what Enkrid had said before they set out.

Grinning mischievously, he'd kept asking over and over again.

Jaxon didn't reply.

He'd just shaken his head.

But inwardly, he'd already agreed.

"How about this for a nickname—'The Knight with the Mad Brain'?

It suits you, don't you think?"

That rare moment came from the barbarian next to him, who for once said something Jaxon didn't find annoying.

Anyway, Jaxon was doing exactly what Enkrid had asked.

He'd spotted the Moonlight Fairies, flanked them, and killed them all himself.

Now he was looking for the archer who had vanished the moment he began his work.

Their stealth was first-rate—he couldn't hear their breath or sense anything at all.

That's why he'd deliberately revealed himself.

Maybe because the allied ranger unit doing recon was in danger.

'Is it magic?'

No.

Like him, they had simply refined their skills through effort.

Jaxon had even intentionally leaked more presence than usual.

He'd never worked like this before—but just because it was unfamiliar didn't mean it was sloppy.

Revealing himself to protect someone—

Sure, he'd used bait before to take down targets.

But this?

This was new.

Finn had spoken, and he'd heard her.

But Jaxon hadn't reacted.

He'd already finished assessing the situation.

He wasn't some brute who fought purely on instinct.

He wasn't some lost idiot who charged blindly.

He wasn't some clingy manchild who prayed to the gods every day.

'I'm especially not the kind of guy who throws himself forward screaming "I'll protect them!" without a plan.'

Jaxon had already listened on his way over, assessed the battlefield based on the sounds, and positioned himself in the best place to fight.

He struck the fairies from behind while they were focused on the allies—then revealed himself.

That was the position that gave him the greatest advantage.

A place to defend Finn and the ranger squad.

"No one move."

Jaxon finally spoke.

Just like that, Finn and the recon squad even slowed their breathing.

He almost wanted to tell them to hold their breath, but it wouldn't be necessary.

The enemy—the archer—wasn't a knight.

But they were still a pain in the ass.

There was a strange familiarity to them.

Had they met before?

Maybe all those hunters who refined their talents ended up feeling similar.

No.

This was something else.

'Hawk Talons?'

That name floated into Jaxon's head.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

When was it again—was it that battlefield where the commander had kicked Frokk?

Yeah.

There'd been an archer with that name back then.

Could it be that guy?

No. He was a tier above that.

Jaxon's instincts said so.

Unbeknownst to him, the Hawk Talon had long since crossed the Black River after taking Rem's axe to the chest.

The woman now hiding from even Jaxon's senses—

She was the Hawk Talon's master.

Half of her blood was fairy, though she outwardly looked human. A half-blood.

It was through that blood—through innate talent embedded deep in her instincts—that she vanished.

Not that any of that mattered to Jaxon.

Whatever technique the enemy used, it didn't change what he had to do.

The target was hiding—so he just had to find them.

That's the nature of assassination.

All you need is to stick a piece of metal into someone's body—but finding them in the first place is always the hard part.

Well, if the target was Frokk, stabbing once wouldn't cut it either.

They were a race that wore chest armor even in their sleep.

Frokk especially—sensitive to anything involving the word "heart"—so it made sense.

If it wasn't Frokk, the most annoying thing about assassination work?

Finding the ones who hid.

Some would dig holes like moles and vanish underground.

Others slept in a different room every night in their mansion.

Geor Dagger was well-versed in intelligence work, so sometimes they'd locate targets through compiled data—but Jaxon, when it came to moments like this, would cover for the gaps with his own skills.

His natural talents.

That's why his former master, who once called himself a teacher, had said this:

"Fuckin' cheat."

Well... maybe not cheat exactly.

Cheating was more like something that applied to his commander.

'Endless Will?'

Now that's what you call bullshit.

Was Peld the only one who had been shocked by the awakened Enkrid?

Jaxon had been moved too.

Maybe that's why he accepted the absurd demand of saving everyone.

'Even if the heavens turn away, even if you're born without talent, you can still become a knight.'

"Why can't I go through a war without losing a single ally?"

Enkrid's words lingered in his ear.

A fleeting thought, overlapping with ideals and taking shape as conviction—

That was Will.

For someone like Jaxon, born with heightened senses, Will was something he could feel.

Fairy Silence described Will as a kind of essence.

Rem received it as part of sorcery.

For Jaxon, it was just something that was.

Just because you couldn't see it didn't mean it wasn't real.

Jaxon visualized his senses and imbued them with Will.

He shrunk the circle he'd spread around himself and thickened its color.

Some people use Will to deliver a cut that severs anything.

Others send invisible blades through the air with it.

Jaxon didn't have talents like that.

Instead, his skill let him attach Will to his five senses.

The sharp-leaved tree blocking the sunlight above him, the black shade beneath it, the fainter shadows cast beyond, the smell in the air, the direction of the wind.

All five senses layered together to open the door to a sixth.

Because he'd fused his sensory technique with Will, Jaxon could perceive everything inside his circle.

Even the tension from the allies behind him.

Even the archer who had quietly drawn and aimed an arrow from atop a tree.

Thung.

The bowstring made a sound—even though the distance should have been too far to hear it.

But the sound came first.

A glowing arrow shot forth.

It wasn't aimed at Jaxon, but at Finn.

Even now, the archer was calculating.

By targeting Finn, they hoped to create an opening.

Jaxon grabbed Finn's wrist and yanked her aside.

Thud.

The arrow embedded itself into the dirt.

A pebble nearby bounced from the impact, then rolled away.

In the split-second where Finn felt the strength pulling her disappear, Jaxon vanished again.

Like smoke dissipating, pfft—he slipped right out of her awareness.

And at the same time, the archer lost track of him.

***

Atheroz's mother was a fairy.

Her father, a human.

That human had abandoned both her and her mother—but Atheroz had been fortunate enough to be accepted into fairy society.

At the time, the fairies themselves had needed transformation, and she had been lucky to help form the Moonlight Fairy combat unit.

After many hardships and growing in strength, she set a goal.

Kill her father.

Every man who scattered his seed carelessly became her enemy.

And after killing her father, she set an even larger goal.

Kill all who create bastards.

To that end, she borrowed Azpen's strength and hunted down her father.

Along the way, she made several pacts and took some of the Moonlight Fairies to form her own unit.

When part of that unit was wiped out, Atheroz immediately concealed herself and took up her bow.

She loosed an arrow at the woman who appeared to be the commander of the survivors.

Tch.

What she wanted was a moment—an opening.

One where the terrifying monster who had suddenly appeared might show himself.

But no such moment came.

The arrow flew—and missed.

Atheroz vanished again.

She hid herself in the shadows and the gloom that had protected her since childhood.

And yet—she felt the blade touch her back.

She twisted her body reflexively, swinging her bow to strike—but the blade buried itself deep between her vertebrae first.

Her enemy was someone specialized in killing.

And Atheroz, who had spent years killing men who created bastards, knew that kind of opponent all too well.

Every death has a story.

Even this half-fairy who fought for Azpen had one.

But once you die, that's it.

Just like that—the half-blood fairy who once made it her mission to slay all bastard-makers was gone.

No time for sentiment.

'A decoy?'

As soon as Jaxon killed the archer, he felt gazes turning toward him.

His senses told him it wasn't over.

Beyond the trees—a presence similar to the ones he'd just killed.

But three times as many.

Dozens of fairy swordsmen.

'So she wasn't just bait, huh.'

By reacting to her allies being taken down, they'd repositioned—and now she had become bait.

Jaxon had revealed his position again to take her out.

He'd even shown off part of his skill.

Now, he twisted his wrist and loosened his joints.

That was just the warm-up.

Now it was time to use his real strength.

The fairy swordsmen didn't charge in.

Instead, they regrouped into formations—and from Jaxon's perspective, they were coordinated and structured.

So who was directing them?

Someone had reacted immediately to the loss of their ally—used it to bait Jaxon.

The sword units' movements proved it.

They had a proper commander.

And Jaxon had already located them.

But charging straight at him would be difficult.

The fairy swordsmen stood in layers, shielding # Nоvеlight # him.

Which meant—it was time to go all out.

They thought Jaxon was just some hidden blade with decent stealth.

Obviously...they were wrong.