A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 686

Chapter 686

“That’s honestly just immature.”
It was Anne. She tilted her chin up, a sharp, lopsided smirk tugging at one corner of her mouth. A predatory spark flickered in her gaze.
Standing in the fading glow of the afternoon, the alchemist let out a grin that looked more like a defensive shield—a jagged mask crafted to endure the vitriol being thrown her way.
“Did they truly believe I’d be unable to consume the water? Are they serious?”
Though no physical adversary stood before them, Anne addressed the empty air as if a foe were standing right there.
“You miserable coward, devoid of both strength and creativity. Did you expect me to fall for this? To shrink away?”
Was this the desperate cry of a cornered animal, or the defiant shout of someone who had found their resolve?
Let’s call it a roar.
That was how Enkrid interpreted it.
“Tell me, Captain. When I ventured to Border Guard on my own, do you honestly think I was just lucky?”
Initially, he had believed that. She had even described her survival as a fluke.
But she was a young woman who couldn’t swing a blade and lacked any personal guard, yet she had cut across the entire continent to reach Border Guard—the city that lived up to its name as the final frontier.
Traversing the world to its very edge in solitude was a feat bordering on the miraculous. Mathematically, her survival should have been an impossibility.
She clearly possessed a strategy.
That was simply Anne’s way. Even when she set foot in the Mad Squad’s training grounds, she never arrived unprepared.
Even during her research, no matter where she was, she always had reagents, tinctures, or those small, hand-rolled medicinal spheres within reach.
Enkrid slept with a sword by his side. Even if it wasn’t the masterwork provided by Aitri, he never lacked a weapon.
What my blade is to me, that satchel must be to her.
Anne unfastened the latch on the bag draped across her hip and reached inside. She produced a tiny, flat, azure pill no larger than the nail of a pinky finger.
“I am an alchemist and a physician.”
Anne spoke softly. It carried the cadence of a traveler’s ballad. With a slight tune, it could have been a song; her voice hit the meter perfectly.
She tossed the tablet into a flask filled with the contaminated liquid. In less time than it takes to draw a breath, a faint blue vapor swirled from the vessel’s mouth and evaporated.
Anne raised the canteen to her mouth and drank.
No one moved to intervene. Anne’s actions mirrored the confidence of one of Ragna’s sword paths—unwavering. It was the sort of gesture that, even if flawed, was executed with enough willpower to make it reality.
The group watched her throat move as she swallowed. Gulp, gulp.
“Phew.”
Anne let out a sharp breath as she finished.
“It’s perfectly fine to drink. A truly pathetic attempt.”
Understood.
Enkrid gave a short nod and accepted the flask.
Gulp. The flavor was untainted.
Anne must have relied on more than just purification tablets to survive the journey to Border Guard.
There were likely concoctions to hide her scent from predators or elixirs to induce sleep in threats.
“The list is too long to go through one by one.”
That was the final point Anne made during her explanation. Enkrid didn’t push for more, nor did he ask who she was arguing with in her head.
He noticed her fingers trembling slightly.
Could a person truly feel secure just because they were surrounded by warriors?
Anne, who walked through a world of direct malice, probably couldn’t.
But she refused to be a passive victim.
She was proving that she wasn’t a target to be toyed with.
However, their opponent had once again demonstrated that they were no common lunatic.
“Halt.”
They hadn’t even spent half a day ascending the mountain pass before Enkrid detected a sharp, acidic odor.
“Toxic vapor? It looks like a magical barrier.”
Grida remarked, squinting at the path ahead.
“I see it too,” Magrun confirmed.
Ragna, meanwhile, simply watched with a vacant expression. Their enemy was attempting to steal their time, and Ragna despised that more than anything else.
Enkrid observed the murky green fog obstructing their route.
Having identified the threat, he didn’t hesitate to weigh his options.
“Is there a way around?”
“There is.”
Magrun replied without missing a beat.
Enkrid shot a look at Ragna, who immediately turned his back toward Anne.
“Climb up.”
“Yes.”
Anne seemed to have anticipated the move and scrambled onto his back. Ragna tossed his massive blade toward Enkrid, who caught it effortlessly.
He couldn’t carry both the girl and the oversized sword on his own back simultaneously.
“Let’s increase the tempo, Magrun.”
“Understood.”
Communication was minimal. Their trajectory, which should have taken them over a simple ridge, now veered sharply to the side.
Magrun took the point while Grida moved off to the right flank, sprinting to sniff out any further sabotage or hidden threats.
As expected—more traps awaited. The adversary had selected only the most frustrating obstacles.
“I’ve lost my bearings.”
Grida came to a standstill and spoke. They were positioned before a trio of trees fused together like siblings, their foliage jagged and razor-edged.
The terrain sloped upward, and the thickening forest made it clear they were now deep in the heart of the mountain.
There were no established trails here. But with Ragna carrying Anne, even this rugged landscape remained manageable for the party.
Magrun was busy hacking through undergrowth with his blade to forge a path.
Everything was proceeding smoothly—until Grida stopped.
Enkrid prepared to pivot toward the north but paused.
This sensation feels exactly like being stranded in the dunes.
Even staring at the sky, he couldn’t determine the cardinal directions. His gut feeling was betraying him.
“It’s a hex,” Enkrid stated.
Grida and Magrun nodded in agreement, while Ragna tilted his head in confusion.
“You’re telling me you don’t know which way is which? I feel completely normal.”
Grida let out a dry, mocking laugh.
“Listen, kid, it’s a curse. It’s distorting our internal compass. You might not grasp it, but just try to focus.”
“What are you talking about? Magrun, we just need to go north, don’t we?”
“That’s right,” Magrun said—though his eyes betrayed his doubt.
And why shouldn’t he be worried? He knew the legends of Ragna’s travels. This was a man who could get lost while staring directly at a sunrise. It was almost impressive.
How does someone like that even function?
Wasn’t this the same person who went missing for an entire month while trying to meet up with someone?
“It’s this way. Due north,” Ragna announced with total certainty.
Anne, looking a bit peaked on his back, whispered weakly.
“Perhaps… you shouldn’t be the one choosing the path. Please.”
A hex wasn’t something alchemy could bypass. Nor could a warrior’s honed senses unravel it. In a sense, they were completely ensnared.
So, the poison mist was merely a funnel for this.
Enkrid began to piece together the mindset of their pursuer—be they sorcerer or mystic.
Block the road with toxic fog.
Should they attempt to push through? Anne likely had a remedy.
But we’ll probably choose to avoid it.
The mountain range was immense, with countless ways to ascend.
And they were four elite knights. Their mobility was unmatched.
They could simply circle around rather than risk the toxin.
The foe had anticipated they would take the detour.
If their path shifted, Magrun would naturally lead them along the most efficient alternative.
Which meant the enemy had placed this curse exactly on that secondary route.
Enkrid realized something else.
Whoever set this up knows these trails intimately.
They were familiar with the passages between Zaun and the rest of the world.
In short—it had to be a member of the Zaun lineage.
“Not many travelers use these woods, right?” Enkrid asked, following his logic.
“Isn’t that obvious? Unless you’re from Zaun, you’d have no reason to be here. I didn’t expect the trip home to be this difficult.”
Magrun didn’t even bother looking in the direction Ragna was pointing. It was clear no one intended to follow the man’s lead.
Even with their own senses compromised, their lack of faith in Ragna remained intact.
Only Enkrid entertained a different thought.
“How can you be so sure that’s north?”
Ragna held Anne steady with one arm and tapped his temple with two fingers.
“Gut instinct.”
“Lead the way.”
The group stared at Enkrid as if he had suffered a mental break.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Are we really giving up this easily?”
Magrun and Grida spoke one after the other. Even Anne, clinging to Ragna, looked horrified.
“Are you alright? Did the fumes get to you?” Anne inquired.
Enkrid didn’t offer a gentle explanation.
“If he’s wrong, we turn back and find a third way. What, would you rather sit here? For how long? Until the spell fades?”
Hesitation was exactly what the enemy desired. So they would do the opposite.
Hadn’t they all survived being lost in the desert once, and learned something from it?
About how to find the way?
“We follow the stars,” Ragna had once claimed. And when the stars were hidden, he trusted his soul.
Jaxon followed the trail of sounds and scents. Rem had spoken of desert nomads who followed the “breath of the dunes.”
Ragna might not be a mystic.
But when the situation demanded it—he could find the path. Just as he had done in Naurill.
Enkrid decided to gamble on that instinct.
“I knew the captain would have faith in me. My steel, if you please.”
Ragna reached out his hand. He set Anne down momentarily to reclaim his greatsword.
Anne gripped her shaking thigh, shooting Enkrid a look that screamed disbelief. Ragna stepped forward in his typically nonsensical fashion.
Magrun and Grida were the types to turn back when a wall blocked the road.
Ragna didn’t understand that concept.
The second he decided north was “that way,” he moved in a straight line.
“That’s a sheer drop, you madman!” Grida yelled.
But Ragna tuned her out, swinging his massive blade and toppling several massive trees.
Crack!
The giant trunks collapsed, crushing the smaller saplings beneath them.
Several trees were torn from the earth, their roots exposed like pale, shameful bellies.
“This is north.”
And so, he carved a tunnel through the wilderness.
Boulders? He leaped over them. Forests? He cut through them.
Eventually, they reached the edge of a cliff—but Ragna simply began to slide down the face of it.
“…We’re actually going down there?” Anne asked. Her face looked as though it had been painted with indigo dye.
“Get on.”
Ragna had cleared the obstacle, so this time Enkrid took the burden of carrying her.
“I feel like my sanity is being eroded,” Anne remarked solemnly, her voice full of doubt.
“Once we clear the hexed zone, it won’t matter if we’re heading north or not,” Enkrid murmured.
The enemy wanted to stall them. So they would do the opposite.
Ragna used his sheer physical dominance to navigate the vertical drop. Occasionally, he plunged his greatsword into the rock face to create a handhold.
They were knights.
A descent like this wouldn’t break them. It was basic training.
“Is this actually working…?” Grida whispered.
As a scout, she had been conditioned to stop and re-evaluate when lost.
But with these lunatics, that protocol was impossible.
Ragna guided them through raw power. By the time the sun had vanished and night had swallowed the forest, they had moved beyond the range of the curse.
They had descended one cliff, scaled another, destroyed over twenty trees, and traversed a small stone peak.
Of course—they weren’t heading north.
They had come out on the western flank. They would need to double back.
But even so—it was a feat.
Any other group would have been walking in circles, trapped.
Even other knights would have lost hours to indecision.
Ragna’s sheer stubbornness had eliminated all wasted time.
“In a strange way, it’s actually impressive,” Grida admitted.
Ragna nodded, as if it were the only logical outcome. But the way his eyes darted around suggested he had no clue where they actually were.
Magrun took over the navigation once more.
“Our goal was the Hunter’s Village, correct?” Enkrid asked.
Zaun was surrounded by several satellite settlements. The Hunter’s Village was one. Others included the Retiree’s Village and the Broker’s Village.
Their target was the southern Hunter’s Village. It wasn’t the quickest route to Zaun, but it was a logical landmark.
“That’s right,” Magrun confirmed.
Without missing a beat, Enkrid posed the next question.
“Is there a path that leads straight to Zaun?”
If he were the sorcerer, he would have prepared more ambushes ahead.
Dozens of them, given the opportunity.
So—why walk into the trap?
When they encountered the mist and the hex, there had been no evidence of Odinkar passing through.
If Odinkar had arrived first…
Then the traps would have already been triggered, leaving only remnants.
Nothing is flawless. Not even magic.
They are single-use triggers—they dissipate once sprung.
The toxic fog and the confusion hex were potent. They couldn’t be maintained indefinitely.
Therefore…
“We’re pivoting.”
By changing their route, they would step outside of the enemy’s calculated moves.
Hearing this, Magrun looked at Anne and noted,
“Moving her through the rough brush might be too taxing.”
He was worried she wouldn’t survive the trek.
Anne spoke for herself.
“If I take a sedative and Ragna secures me tightly to his back, I can make it.”
Her resolve was solid.
“Then it’s settled.”
Enkrid gave a shrug. Their path—and their objective—had shifted.
Ragna finally stopped trying to recognize the trees and spoke up.
“That was just a minor detour.”
Minor, my foot.
If that was a “minor” detour, any larger and they would have ended up in Rihinstetten to the south instead of their home.
Magrun nearly snapped at him—but held his tongue.
They had made it out, and that was what mattered.