A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

"...All units, retreat!"

General Frokk barely managed to open his mouth, suppressing the pressure weighing down on him.

Knight Jamal was dead.

Could they kill that monster with the troops they had left?

The reason knights were called calamities was etched clearly in Frokk's "that."

It thrashed wildly inside his breastplate.

"Why? Want to keep going?"

Enkrid, unintentionally radiating pressure from his excitement, retracted it and spoke.

In front of him, Frokk stood frozen, gripping his weapon.

If he charged, Enkrid would cut him down.

But he didn't look like he was going to charge.

That was what Enkrid's sharpened senses—beyond the five—his intuition and instinct, were telling him.

Enkrid was enjoying the moment and believed he had grown a little more through Jamal.

That joy was greater than anything else right now.

The fight with Knight Jamal had been a duel.

The outcome was decisive.

There was no need to kill these others.

Just because a knight could kill a thousand men alone didn't mean he had to chase down every last soldier to slaughter them.

That wouldn't be ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) a knight. That would just be a maniac obsessed with blood.

"The blood-drinking knight will take you away."

That's what parents would say to children who misbehaved.

Like "the beasts will come take you" or "the ghouls will get you."

Didn't Acker once mention in passing that the blood-drinking knight had actually existed?

A madman addicted to blood, slaughter, and the act of killing itself.

"Giants are fun to slice, humans are tender and nice, and Frokk... Frokk is chewy, so he's amusing."

Wasn't that what he had said?

Enkrid had no intention of becoming like that.

Was it a fight out of necessity, or bloodshed for pleasure?

There had to be a line.

Leaving the oil-drenched Frokk behind—who was practically sweating tension—Enkrid retrieved his sword, and even picked up Jamal's.

Didn't even use the throwing spear.

He went and collected the one he had propped up at the edge of the clearing earlier.

Not bad.

Training with Acker had made it easier to manage his Will.

That Plunder had failed to take effect?

Jamal had every right to feel bitter.

The size of the Will inside Enkrid was comparable to the legendary Uske.

An undrying lake, an endlessly welling spring.

To try and gnaw away at that with Plunder and win—that was madness.

Of course, if Jamal had known Enkrid better, he wouldn't have fought that way.

He'd have waited for an opening to land a single fatal blow.

Was his downfall simply a lack of intel?

Enkrid, by habit, began a mental replay.

"If you get stronger and faster, shouldn't you also know how to use it more efficiently?"

That had been Lua Gharne's line.

Rem and Ragna weren't his only sparring partners.

Despite her having vastly superior strength and perception, there had been a moment when she had poked his side.

Was it because her tactical instincts were that good? Or had he held back because she wasn't a knight?

No. Neither.

She knew how to fight. She knew how to use what she had.

Frokk's body regenerated. So giving up an arm wasn't a big deal.

She had shown Frokk's way of fighting.

Sacrifice the bone to take the flesh.

It hadn't been a critical blow. At best, it was just a scratch.

But the important part was that she had landed a blow.

What did it mean to fight efficiently?

It meant thinking. Using the terrain. Reconsidering what combat meant. The realm of personal tactics.

Just because Enkrid had become a knight didn't mean he had stopped learning.

Even now, he hadn't stopped.

Enkrid thought his current mindset resembled a kind of squad-level tactic.

The Frokk in front of him probably devised this.

An act of resolve—give up bone, give up flesh—if only to take one claw from the enemy.

"Leave now."

Enkrid said to Frokk, who was still brimming with caution and watching him.

"...You're just letting us go?"

"Do you have a reason to die here?"

If not, shouldn't you go?

Frokk rolled his eyes in suspicion, then backed off.

Is it really okay to leave?

That doubt filled his expression.

Enkrid let Frokk go.

Killing him wouldn't change the outcome of the battle.

If this is the setup Kraiss prepared, it's better to keep the thinking ones alive.

There was a plan that even included Crang.

Now that he thought about it, Kraiss—that bug-eyed bastard—was a strange one.

Despite all his anxiety, he'd still made plans for what came next.

So from that perspective—was killing Frokk the right move?

I don't feel like it.

The fact he had sent all his men away and stayed behind alone, his current demeanor that didn't quite match a last stand, Enkrid liked that.

So I'll let him go.

Half of it was a whim. The other half was judgment—this might help Kraiss's plan.

Or rather, to be honest, the fact that Frokk had stayed behind alone after sending his men away—it just didn't make Enkrid want to kill him.

Azpen had already suffered a huge blow with Jamal's death. Frokk surviving wouldn't suddenly rally a new army.

To wage a full-scale war now would be a meaningless sacrifice.

It was a short moment, but one decided through instinct.

Frankly, if Kraiss had been watching, he'd probably have said,

"You're just doing what you feel like, right?"

—and Enkrid wouldn't have been able to deny it.

Frokk had once kicked him in the ribs, but that had long been forgotten.

There was no lingering grudge.

Enkrid re-equipped his gear and stepped forward. He was going to rejoin the other units.

But someone moved before he did.

From the shadowy edge of the clearing, a sullen man with chestnut-red hair emerged.

To Rem, he looked shady and creepy— but through a biased aesthetic lens, he was still a handsome man.

"Is it over?"

The man asked.

"On my side, it is."

"Hm."

Normally, one of them would have said they should go check on Rem or Ragna next, but Jaxon just flicked and wiped his blood-stained dagger in silence.

Enkrid gave Jaxon something pleasant to hear.

"Let's go. See how badly Rem and Ragna are getting beaten up."

"Let's."

As they walked, Enkrid heard about the enemy who had ambushed Jaxon.

"Moonlight Fairies?"

"They specialized in stealth attacks. The recon team is safe."

Sure enough, as they advanced, Finn and the recon unit approached.

"Came back from the brink."

Finn said.

Her eyes flicked toward Jaxon.

The image of that man's fight was still vivid in her mind.

The Moonlight Fairies were expert backstabbers—literally.

Their specialty was silent, precise stabs to the back.

And these particular fairies were absurdly nimble.

When a swarm of them rushed in—Jaxon had suddenly disappeared.

"What the hell?!"

They'd yelled out, startled, expecting to hold out in a head-on brawl.

But in a blink, three or four fairies dropped to the ground.

"Yit!"

One fairy reacted and swung a crescent-shaped sword, but there was already nothing there.

From that moment, Jaxon became a grim reaper flitting between shadows.

The dagger in his hand slashed throats, stabbed lungs, pierced hearts, and sliced thighs.

Blood sprayed—but no bone fragments flew.

Only blood.

The fairy armor made of bark didn't even slow his blades.

He simply jammed them into the gaps.

Of course, there was still the tiny problem that his opponents were as nimble as birds, leaping into trees in a single bound.

But it was just that—tiny.

Finn had seen junior knights fight.

She'd been through a lot.

But this—this was her first time witnessing a fight like that.

Was it amazing? She didn't know.

All she saw were enemies dropping like puppets with cut strings.

All Finn and the recon unit could do was stand back and watch.

At one point, the fairy commander—with a dagger in his forehead—collapsed backward.

That spot became his coffin.

A silent dagger flew, and the reaper appeared, striking again.

No matter how reckless the fairies were, some things were just too much.

Especially after losing their commander.

The fight ended faster than expected.

The fairy swarm scattered and vanished.

Then the man reappeared.

Honestly—Finn was a little scared.

Should she be relieved that he was an ally?

He looked like someone who might slit her throat without warning.

And the dangerous man didn't even say "it's okay."

"We move."

That's all he said before walking forward.

"He... he's on our side, right?"

One of her subordinates asked from behind.

Finn nodded.

Only then did she realize she and the recon unit had all taken several steps back without noticing.

Why feel fear after killing enemies? Not relief—fear.

Partly because of Jaxon's overwhelming skill.

But also because his strikes had no emotion.

It was as if he fought because it was his task.

That's what scared her.

"Uh, um."

Finn, still thinking about what had just happened, hesitated over how to speak.

Enkrid casually jabbed Jaxon in the side.

"There's blood on you too."

"...What was that?"

Jaxon narrowed his brow as he asked.

A fair question.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Enkrid had just, with the senses sharpened by his fight against the knight Jamal, slipped past Jaxon's perception and poked him in the side.

It was like mixing noise into sound.

Combine static and interference, and the real message gets buried.

To be more precise, right before the poke, Enkrid had faked a brush at the throat, a trip at the foot—just subtle feints driven by intent.

Jaxon could've blocked it if he'd tried.

But he hadn't. He let it happen knowingly.

So this was more like a half-joke, a nudge between two people who both knew exactly what had happened.

"Aren't you worried your lover in the city's gonna complain about the smell of blood?"

"Unlike someone I know, I actually wash."

"That someone might be buried in the East by now."

"I doubt that beastwoman would die so easily."

"You're giving Dunbakel more credit than I expected."

"Not just anyone can survive under a barbarian's command."

So surviving Dunbakel earns respect now? Then should all of Rem's subordinates be dead?

Enkrid thought idly, then glanced at Finn.

She was a ranger. And she'd practically lived in the Pen-Hanil mountain range for this battle. So she should be better than him at navigating terrain.

Then why was she standing still?

Finn's mind was tangled.

Seeing a man who could become death itself make such a silly joke...And realizing it was Enkrid who had deployed him made it all the more complicated.

With that kind of skill, shouldn't he have been fighting elsewhere? Alongside Enkrid, perhaps?

Just because the result turned out well doesn't mean everything was fine.

War comes with sacrifice. Finn felt that deeply. This time, she thought, it was her turn.

Was she happy to be alive? Sure.

But the truth was more complicated—a messy mix of fear, joy, and relief.

That confusion made her speak.

"Why did you do that?"

All of it—her thoughts, her doubt—twisted into one question. It slipped out before she even realized.

"What do you mean?"

"This was like sending a hundred infantrymen to catch a single ghoul. No one calls the knights just to kill a single beast."

Her words meant this:

Somewhere else, others had likely fought in disadvantageous conditions to save their lives.

And she was right.

That's how it usually went.

Kraiss had said it too—

There's no such thing as a battlefield without sacrifice.

Yes. He'd said that.

Enkrid, recalling the conversation, calmly spoke thoughts he'd never even told Kraiss.

"I thought I could."

"...What?"

"I thought I could win without losing a single ally."

To someone who didn't know better, it would sound absurd.

But Enkrid had just cut down a knight.

Finn didn't know that, but she'd seen the traces of battle. She saw what Jaxon had done.

So—

"You thought you could?"

Finn, half-dazed, asked again.

"Yeah. I thought I could."

It wasn't arrogance. It wasn't invincibility. It was confidence.

Not recklessness, but calculated fighting.

After his training with Acker, Enkrid had been pressing Rem and Ragna harder.

"Barbarian. If you stay like this, you'll fall behind."

"Me? Fall behind who? The Captain?"

"No."

"Then who?"

"Ragna's sword. It's gotten heavier."

"...Shit. Grab your sword and stand up. That provocation was perfect."

He said that to Rem.

To Ragna, he said—

"Ragna, it's fine to lose your way. But I don't think I'd enjoy watching you cry after Rem beats you up."

"Are you saying I'm going to get beaten up by her?"

Even though he said Rem's name, Ragna didn't listen.

But the air around her—once loose—sharpened like a blade.

"You want to fight?"

"Block well. You might get hurt."

Motivating people was easy.

Up until now, Enkrid didn't even have to try—training alone was enough to spark motivation. But this time, he was deliberately trying.

Why?

"Fight more. Get closer."

That was Acker's advice.

Through relentless battle, Enkrid had gained something.

This wasn't a gift from Acker. It was something Enkrid had seized for himself.

First: the method of handling Will.

Like pushing an immovable boulder in the direction you wanted. Or like collecting endlessly welling water in your hands.

It wasn't just about force. It required technique.

Using a lever to move a rock. Tilting your hands to catch flowing water. It was that kind of skill.

No one else had that kind of Will, so there was no one to teach it to him.

Enkrid instinctively understood.

This was the realm he had to explore.

And so he did.

That's how he learned to manage Will.

Next: the experience gained from fighting knights.

Acker had told him to fight more knights—not as a student, but as an equal.

"Better to fight one equal opponent than cut down a hundred weaklings."

Enkrid had followed that advice.

He'd felt the truth of it in his body.

Right up to the war with Azpen, he trained with Audin in Balrafian martial arts, practiced Valen-style swordsmanship alone, sparred with Rem and Ragna, and played dagger tag with Jaxon.

That was the confidence he'd built.

That's how he calculated their forces.

It seems doable.

There would be battles where sacrifice was unavoidable.

But this time, maybe it wouldn't be necessary.

More than anything, every member of their team was skilled enough to pull themselves out of danger when needed.

Would Rem throw her life away just to kill one of Azpen's knights? Not a chance.

They would block. They would strike. Because they thought they could.

If it didn't work—then they could talk about sacrifices afterward.

"Which method are we going with?"

"The first one."

That's what he told Kraiss.

Kraiss had mumbled something about losing his mind over Enkrid's wish for a bloodless battlefield.

But what could Enkrid say?

In matters like this, words couldn't earn trust. Only action could.

And right now, Enkrid was proving his words with action.

He would make this a war with no deaths.

A vision that, to some, might sound naive—but one that shone unwaveringly from the beginning.

Those who followed Enkrid, those who had watched him, they believed in him naturally.

And this—this was the result.