Eternally Regressing Knight

Chapter 310 – Abnaier’s Resolve
What was Abnaier doing?
Though Abnaier’s army advanced slowly, their pace was anything but leisurely. In reality, they
were incredibly busy. It was akin to a swan appearing graceful on the surface while frantically
paddling below. There was so much to prepare and construct, from rituals to fortifications. The
work exceeded even the effort required to build a fortress on a mountainside.
This was the foundation of Abnaier’s methods.
“Nilf, go ahead and pile stones here. Build a wall,” he ordered, pointing to the map.
“Yes, sir,” Nilf responded, nodding.
“That’s an overwhelming schedule,” another subordinate remarked.
“Use your energy to act instead of complain,” Abnaier retorted sharply.
Loyal commanders were sent ahead. Nilf, meticulous as he was, would handle it well.
Meanwhile, disguised as scouts, another detachment moved forward—engineers in practice.
They built barricades between the hills, the very ones Enkrid later encountered.
Despite maintaining the main force’s pace, other units were dispatched to continue the work.
Building stone walls, digging trenches, and setting traps was no task for the fainthearted or the
unprepared.
“This doesn’t require massive effort,” Abnaier thought. The traps weren’t meant for entire armies,
only small elite forces—three at most, perhaps just one or two. Every variable had to be
calculated, every possibility anticipated.
That was Abnaier’s way.
Since childhood, Abnaier was known for his brilliance. Yet what underpinned that brilliance?
Those who knew him well often praised his boldness, even audacity. Some called it a knack for
exploiting others’ vulnerabilities.
“You’re insane. Always coming up with daring yet impossible strategies,” a peer once remarked
during their shared lessons under a master strategist.
Their criticism wasn’t unwarranted. Abnaier’s plans were bold but often seemed unfeasible.
But what if they succeeded?
This was where his second strength shone: meticulousness.
Even when hunting a single rabbit, Abnaier prepared second and third traps. No resource was
spared to ensure success. And success was guaranteed.
“This is inefficient,” the peer complained again. “A rabbit yields some fur and meat, but your
efforts cost more than the prize.”
Short-sightedness, Abnaier thought.
“I’m simply in the habit of being thorough,” he replied dismissively.
But his vision extended far beyond a single rabbit.
“Once traps are laid, they can be reused. All it takes is herding the next rabbit into them,” he
reasoned.
His groundwork wasn’t wasteful—it was an investment. Each subsequent hunt would become
easier, yielding greater returns. With careful maintenance, he could secure larger prey, even deer,
before summer arrived.
Abnaier’s strategy was rooted in this blend of precision and persuasive structure.
Still, he rarely shared his entire thought process. His peer, after all, was a nobleman—a member
of the Eckins lineage close to the royal family. If the Hurriers were the body of Aspen, the
Eckins were its head.
Meanwhile, Abnaier was of common birth.
He was perceptive, quick to read the room and adapt.
“Things may be this way now, but circumstances always change,” he thought, harboring his own
ambitions.
Abnaier had been brilliant from a young age, skilled in seizing what he desired. Few goals
escaped his grasp. Confidence came naturally to him.
Even joining a soft-hearted nobleman’s tutelage was part of his careful calculation—a calculated
gamble of audacity and planning.
He orchestrated an encounter, arranging for a gang to ambush him on a road his future mentor
frequented. His struggle against them wasn’t coincidence but premeditation.
“Come with me. You’ll have a better life,” the man said, impressed by the staged valor.
“Yes, sir,” Abnaier replied, concealing his satisfaction.
His path had always been his own.
From childhood, Abnaier harbored a single desire.
“Why should Aspen be content as a mere duchy?”
A stronger, more prosperous nation was possible.
Aspen might be a duchy, but it had knights and knight-level forces. Even the neighboring
Naurelia posed little concern.
“Aspen has only one enemy: Naurelia. But Naurelia? It has many enemies besides Aspen.”
The desire to prove his capabilities burned within him.
Moreover, his mentor’s love and aspirations influenced him deeply. Though Abnaier was
practical, even he couldn’t ignore genuine affection.
“I love this country, my son,” his mentor had once said.
The man who eventually adopted Abnaier as his own might not have understood politics but was
a true patriot. Even knowing he’d been manipulated, the man gave his love freely.
That man was both Abnaier’s mentor and father.
Abnaier balanced his ambitions and the influence of his mentor, wielding both as weapons.
“I will prove myself on this land,” he resolved, intent on carrying out a part of his mentor and
adoptive father’s dream.
“And so, you must die.”
Few in Aspen paid as much attention to Enkrid as Abnaier did. He delved into Enkrid’s life with
the fervor of an obsessive reader, scrutinizing every detail.
The conclusion was clear: Enkrid and his unit posed a significant threat to Aspen and, by
extension, to Abnaier’s own aspirations.
“A future knight,” he assessed.
Perhaps more.
Though his methods differed from Krais’s, Abnaier’s predictions were not far off. Both held
Enkrid’s future potential in high regard, though Krais envisioned Enkrid joining the elite ranks of
his personal salon.
While Krais had his reasons, Abnaier saw Enkrid’s potential knighthood as a direct and
undeniable threat. Though voicing such concerns to the royal family would be dismissed as
paranoia, the thought lingered:
What if—against all odds—a knight arose from Naurelia’s frontier?
Worse still, what if that knight emerged from the border shared with Aspen?
A single knight could shift the balance of power, and the appearance of such a force within an
enemy nation was an unmitigated disaster.
“It’s unacceptable,” Abnaier concluded.
Thus, Enkrid had to die.
Abnaier designed the “Triangle Seal,” a formation comprising three fortified positions enhanced
with artificial constructs.
“To win a war, the terrain must favor you,” he believed, transforming the battlefield with
deliberate ingenuity. He reshaped the land to his advantage, wielding earth and sky as allies.
On top of that, he employed sorcery. A mist obscured the heavens, disorienting enemies. While
less complex than the deadly mists of annihilation, it still drained the sorcerers of their strength.
It was only viable because it needed to last less than a day. Any longer, and such a strategy
would’ve been unthinkable.
Through calculated maneuvering, Abnaier drove his opponent into this prison, blinding them
with sorcery at the critical moment. He was confident they’d be unable to escape—and he was
right.
Within this natural prison, over a thousand soldiers were unleashed on their prey.
Was this an efficient fight?
“Of course not!”
Efficiency didn’t matter. What mattered was ensuring the kill.
If capturing a single rabbit meant setting twenty traps and deploying five hunters, so be it.
What if that rabbit was destined to become a monstrous beast, wielding a sword in its jaws and
wreaking havoc?
Would such efforts still be a waste?
For Abnaier, the answer was clear.
He dispatched dozens of messengers and issued orders to the standard-bearers.
“Move the white standard!”
Each standard-bearer became a silent herald, as even drumbeats were forbidden in this prison to
maintain absolute secrecy.
And so, the Triangle Seal was complete.
One side relied on man-made walls, another on sorcery and magic, and the third was fortified by
a thousand soldiers.
“Even a knight cannot escape this easily,” Abnaier thought.
This was his trap.
The boatman asked a question.
On the dark river, the purple lamp swayed, its glow casting distorted shadows that bent and
stretched.
“Did you not enjoy it?”
The boatman repeated his question, his face now partially visible.
Enkrid, staring at the face, said nothing.
The boatman waited, but no answer came.
Time passed, though in this surreal realm, time was intangible.
The boatman knew their meeting was nearing its end. Soon, Enkrid’s form began to crumble like
grains of sand, his body dissipating into the void.
It was his return to the external world—a cycle repeated.
The boatman watched as Enkrid scattered into fragments, speaking at last.
“Ah.”
It was strange, as if Enkrid only now acknowledged him.
Had his silence meant he had nothing to say, or was it deliberate disregard?
The boatman felt a stirring within but said nothing more.
“Next time, I’ll ask again,” he murmured.
His voice lingered in the emptiness where Enkrid had vanished.
Enkrid had no time to respond.
Whether at death’s door or on the brink of survival, he never resigned himself to death.
Yet, as if by habit, he absorbed the events around him, storing them in his mind.
It was a reflex—a practice for reflection, a preparation for tomorrow.
So much had happened.
The influx of information into his mind, the things he memorized, remembered, and deemed
necessary—all of it piled up.
He sifted through it.
Still, it was overwhelming.
“There’s too much.”
Questions naturally arose as Enkrid pieced together the information around him.
Had the enemy truly deployed such a massive force to capture just him?
He didn’t know.
But did the reason matter now?
It wasn’t the time for deliberation—it was a time to accept what had happened and find a way
forward.
Dismissing the idle doubts, Enkrid replayed the events in reverse.
As he did, he heard the faint rustling of movement.
Of course, he would notice it the moment he opened his eyes—this had happened countless times
before.
The cycle repeated. There was never enough time to fully reflect, as battle always came swiftly
after regaining focus.
Still, it wasn’t a crisis.
“It’s thin,” he noted.
Enkrid didn’t consider this situation a true wall. Give it another day of relentless struggle, and
he’d have a rough sense of the events unfolding around him.
At most, two days—he had already calculated as much.
Today was one he could survive.
Avoiding danger was something he’d done countless times.
He’d done it when he fought the thorn-covered Letsha, the werewolves, and Aspen’s elite forces.
He’d done it when he infiltrated a pack of gnolls and even when facing that deranged
spear-wielding freak for the first time.
Some things changed, but others didn’t.
“The grand pattern remains the same,” he thought.
And now, with the enemy’s movements discerned from a single encounter—
“Will I need a second today?”
No, this wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle.
Compared to what he’d endured, today would almost be laughably easy.
Enkrid took a step forward.
What if he ran in a completely different direction than yesterday?
“Surely, there’ll be a gap somewhere.”
It was unthinkable that the enemy had truly committed an entire battalion just to hunt him down.
But they had.
The struggle repeated.
Yesterday, today—it was all the same.
“My name is Cent,” declared a figure suddenly blocking his path.
Enkrid was slightly startled. He’d chosen a different route, yet the same man now barred his way.
“Why?”
This day was repeating itself. Unless he made a significant disruption, nothing would change.
With his aching arm and broken sword, now replaced with a gladius, Enkrid confronted Cent
once again.
Though the fight was brief, Cent’s interference had complicated his escape. Enkrid countered
with the first technique of his self-taught swordsmanship: Serpent Sword. He parried and
deflected, slicing through Cent’s fingers in the process.
Clang!
The clash of blades sent blood and severed fingers flying through the air.
A brief opening appeared.
The moment Enkrid registered it, his body moved instinctively.
While it wasn’t exactly Will, the reflexes he’d honed during countless bouts with Lykanos
remained intact.
“Guh!”
As Cent tried to stifle his scream, Enkrid drove the tip of his blade—a glowing ember—into the
man’s throat.
The action was seamless: striking with the gladius and following up with the burning tip felt like
one fluid motion.
Thud!
As he withdrew his sword, a jet of blood erupted from Cent’s neck.
“Grrrk,” Cent gurgled, clutching his throat. Blood poured freely from his severed fingers and
neck as he collapsed to the ground.
“Let’s not meet again,” Enkrid muttered, hoisting Cent’s body.
Using the corpse as a shield, he intercepted the incoming projectiles—a volley of bolts
embedding themselves into the dead mercenary.
Thunk! Thunk!
“They just keep coming.”
There were so many, far too many.
He still couldn’t fathom why.
Arrows, crossbow bolts, spears, heavily armored infantry, warriors of the Hurrier family, and
capable mercenaries all poured in like a relentless tide.
It was the same overwhelming assault as yesterday.
Enkrid pushed through, barely surviving by sheer endurance, only to find more foes blocking his
escape.
“A persistent one, aren’t you?”
“Stay sharp.”
Four men stood in his way, clad in shoddily layered gambesons suited for the cold. To Enkrid,
they seemed unremarkable as combatants.
And his instincts were correct—they weren’t adept with their weapons.
Instead, they wielded something else: spells.
They intercepted him as he attempted to escape along the riverbank.
Enkrid regretted not bringing his Whistle Daggers.
“No, even if I had brought them…”
They would’ve been spent by now.
Every escape route had been met with ambushes. Every direction, another squad of soldiers.
It felt as though ghosts were toying with him.
And this was the result of his flight.
“Press him and box him in,” the leader commanded ———————————————————————————————–
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