A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 707

Chapter 707

Enkrid addressed Ragna directly.
“You should consider it a miracle if even half of them survive this.”
Anne, who had been resting, pushed herself into a sitting position and watched the departing figures.
Her stare was unwavering, her eyelids never moving.
If one were to stand before Anne at that moment, they would have seen the reflection of those retreating backs deep within her wide pupils.
Enkrid, Ragna, and Grida—who remained lying down—all shifted their focus to Anne following her remark.
“I am sorry, Ragna. I gave you my word that I would heal everyone.”
In reality, only fifty percent could be saved.
And that estimate only held true if they managed to avoid falling in the coming battle.
To Enkrid’s ears, that was the harsh subtext.
Anne had the option to offer excuses, provide clinical justifications, or list the insurmountable obstacles.
She chose silence instead.
Even a prodigy lacked the power to force time to move faster.
The plague-like affliction that had gripped Zaun for so long existed because this land had been turned into a laboratory for someone’s experiments.
The intent fueling it was exceptionally cruel.
Had Anne been granted a full year, her tone would have been different.
She would have confidently predicted a seventy percent survival rate.
With three years, her declaration would have been absolute.
At the very least, she would have boldly promised that the disease would claim no more lives.
But she was out of time.
To implement the medical framework she had developed, which merged traditional healing with alchemy, she required endless clinical trials and long-term observation.
What was the worth of brilliance when faced with such a total absence of time?
How did it differ from a dry leaf ready to crumble?
“I truly apologize.”
Anne spoke the words once more.
Ragna’s eyes, mimicking hers, stayed glued to the exit.
He watched the forms of those who claimed Zaun as their birthplace.
Among them, Grida Zaun—his own flesh and blood—spoke up.
“No one holds this against you.”
Ragna had struggled to find his way.
He had never known how to chart a course for himself.
However, he had never viewed this uncertainty as a weakness.
If anything, he saw it as a gift.
He was always greeted by fresh paths, unexplored worlds, and novelty.
A road walked under the sun would feel entirely foreign by moonlight.
How could that be a curse? It wasn’t.
Yet, the moment his hand gripped a hilt, the fog vanished.
He could navigate a path laid perfectly bare and see exactly where it terminated.
In the art of the blade, there was nothing hidden from Ragna.
Because of that clarity, he found the path dull.
That was the reason he had wandered away from his home.
One might label it a youthful defiance, a deviation from the predictable, or just a life lived in search of something more meaningful.
“Ragna, this kingdom is your cradle,” Enkrid remarked.
Since his return to Zaun, Ragna had been analyzing his own choices.
‘I wasn’t looking for the dawn.’
He asked himself why and hunted for the truth within.
“The solution lies inside you. Your history and your experiences serve as your lanterns.”
Enkrid’s philosophy was finally taking root in Ragna.
What did it truly mean to accept that anger was justified?
“They defiled your birthplace, tormented your kin, and sought to erase the very ground where you grew up.”
Because of that reality, the sunrise was irrelevant.
His gut had forced him to swing at nothingness, then brought him to a dead stop in the middle of a sprint.
Was it a dread of vanishing without a legacy? No, that wasn’t the fear.
He had simply halted.
Pure instinct.
Raw intuition.
As if a divine hand had written this fate.
And in this moment, the reason was clear.
‘My home is under threat.’
Enkrid might have referred to Zaun as a minor kingdom, but for Ragna, it was the terrain of his childhood, the community that shaped him—the origin of his soul.
It was home.
The wandering son had physically returned long ago.
But only now did he truly see with open eyes.
His father was a ghost of his former self, wasted away.
His mother’s gaze was sharp with a bitterness he didn’t recognize.
His sister’s body had been violated by a blade.
The men he considered his brothers were spitting up blood while trying to fight off a fever.
“The one who did this to us is waiting out there,” Enkrid stated.
“I’m aware,” Ragna answered.
He understood now.
He knew the source of his rage.
Had he believed he should stay back because he had once shirked his duties?
Had he genuinely feared the judgment of others for his past?
“A single strike won’t balance the scales for all the time you spent away,” Enkrid remarked—it wasn’t quite a reprimand, but it wasn’t just friendly advice either.
He was warning him that even if he fought like a demon now, he wouldn’t necessarily find redemption in everyone’s eyes.
Whether Ragna absorbed the weight of the words or simply let them wash over him, his reply was the same.
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
Observing this, Enkrid gave a sharp nod.
Yes, that was the Ragna he knew.
With that, Enkrid pushed aside a painful memory from his own history.
There was no use dwelling on old wounds.
Right now, his only goal was to ensure his comrade didn’t have to endure the same nightmares he had survived.
“Grida.”
“I’m listening.”
“Keep Anne safe.”
“I would have laid down my life for her even without your request.”
Grida wasn’t the only one staying behind.
There were others—those who had been seized by convulsions and were gasping for air since Heskal had left.
Anne had pulled them back from the brink.
Among them was the young squire who had first acted as their guide.
Even a boy of thirteen was now beyond the reach of Anne’s restorative magic.
The child was dying.
He had been infected with the most aggressive form of the “seeds” planted by the lunatic outside.
His abdomen was distended with growths—a slow, agonizing death.
Unable to fight, he was among those left behind.
“I’ll stand guard over her as well,” the boy declared.
Did he truly grasp the gravity of the situation?
He seemed more perceptive than Ragna had been at that same age.
His words carried a weight of understanding.
“I can’t join the front lines, but if anyone tries to harm the healer, I can still draw blood.”
It was true. He likely could.
The boy possessed a fierce inner fire.
“They used toxins before, didn’t they? And Anne shielded everyone? If the threat is the same, I can hold my own just as well as you,” Grida added.
She was trying to provide comfort.
Her torso had been pierced.
She could technically fight, yes.
But if she pushed herself to the limit, it would be her end.
They couldn’t permit that.
The objective was basic—do not let anyone breach the perimeter.
What you cherish stays at your back.
That protection would be the mark you leave on the world.
Ragna turned to Anne.
“If I return from this…”
“Don’t start. I don’t want to hear any ‘if’ statements. Just return. If things turn sour, I’ll scream at the top of my lungs. You just come back and be my shield again.”
Ragna nodded in silence.
“I will.”
If he perished here—what would remain?
That girl, who radiated vitality even while crushed by the guilt of the lives she couldn’t save, despite her innocence.
Ragna started to speak, then stopped.
He pushed down the thought: ‘The version of me you remember will remain.’
“Moving out,” Enkrid said, stepping into the open.
Ragna followed in his wake.
‘It isn’t just Anne.’
She wouldn’t be the only one left with his memory.
There was also that man who had fought his way up and told Ragna it was right to be furious.
That man would also carry the memory of “me.”
They exited the manor.
As they moved, they encountered a member of the house walking at a slower pace.
A woman with cropped hair looked at Enkrid and questioned,
“Why is Enki staying to fight, anyway?”
She was someone Enkrid had grown to respect during his stay.
Perhaps he was doing it for a comrade, or to safeguard those behind him—there were plenty of noble reasons.
But he wasn’t going to voice such sentimentalities.
Ragna drifted back, keeping a slight distance.
He hadn’t socialized with the household as much as Enkrid; his time had been consumed by guarding Anne.
The woman found Ragna’s presence somewhat daunting.
Enkrid adjusted his stride to match hers.
“Samcheol.”
“…What was that?”
“He kept nagging me, saying he wanted to play.”
The eccentric man patted the hilt of the sword at his hip.
Swaaah—
The wind whipped the rain against their skin.
The woman from Zaun moved a half-step away from Enkrid.
“So the healer wasn’t joking about you.”
A lunatic who carries on conversations with his weapon.
“Yes, yes, Samcheol. Today will be quite the event.”
Enkrid disregarded the others and stroked the blade with affection.
The woman quickened her pace to get away.
He hadn’t intended to mock her.
Should he have admitted he despised the villain who ruined his friend’s home?
Or that he hoped the people he had grown fond of would survive?
It was too cringeworthy.
Better to let them think he was just obsessed with the duel.
Samcheol sobbed.
That wasn’t a figure of speech.
The metal vibrated, echoing Enkrid’s Will.
It wasn’t that the sword possessed tear ducts, but that his intent had saturated the steel.
“Why are you playing the fool?” Ragna questioned Enkrid.
It wasn’t a lecture, but Ragna had realized the joke was a flimsy shield for Enkrid’s actual emotions.
“Me?”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“If I turned the question on you and asked what you’d leave behind, what would your answer be?”
Enkrid used Ragna’s own logic to counter him.
“What else? The witnesses to my swordcraft.”
He gave a radiant grin, even as the rain poured down.
Ragna let out a laugh.
He was indeed furious at those who had desecrated his home.
And now he was closing the distance to confront them.
Of course he could find laughter in that.
To a bystander, it would look like madness.
Zaun was constructed on a basin, so the approaching road was a subtle incline.
It was a broad, paved path, known to the members of House Zaun as the Pilgrimage Path of the Sword.
‘They are devotees of the god of blades, aren’t they?’
Enkrid traversed that road now.
The deluge had created scattered pools of water.
Regardless, the path remained smooth.
They didn’t worship a traditional holiness; they offered their reverence to the blade.
Thus, it was a pilgrimage—a walk taken in deep respect.
Further down the twisting road, the architects of this catastrophe had assembled.
The tempest blurred the horizon.
But at the vanguard, the lord of the house and the figures obstructing him were visible.
Enkrid and Ragna watched the lord’s silhouette.
Without a word, the man unsheathed his steel.
The opposition moved instantly.
Two scalers, marked with chaotic black and red patterns, flanked him and lunged.
The lord advanced alone.
Hadn’t Anne provided him with some sort of elixir?
Likely, most of what the healer had produced were merely potent stimulants to keep them upright.
True healing required a luxury of time they didn’t have.
Had the lord consumed it?
The aura emanating from him now was twice as potent as before.
Like a massive, upright blade, that sheer pressure stood defiant against the falling storm.

—

“How are they still standing?”
Heskal hadn’t felt this level of astonishment in years.
The thought escaped him as a low mumble.
They were supposed to be bedridden and broken—yet they stood with strength.
They didn’t look like men clinging to life by a thread.
Beside him, the pupil of Dremule spoke.
“This defies logic.”
He was a man over seventy.
Blinded as a youth, he hadn’t sought spiritual sight but had instead grafted an Evil Eye into his brow.
Through that cursed artifact, he could pierce the veil of the rain.
“Interference. Was the healer girl not confirmed dead?”
Heskal, processing the variables with his cold intellect, answered.
“She must have survived.”
The conclusion was simple.
It was that girl, Anne.
His gut confirmed it.
Dremule hadn’t targeted her without cause.
Dremule was already aware of Anne’s potential.
The moment Heskal had provided the report, Dremule had ordered her execution.
Because those who pose a threat to the plan must be erased.
He had wanted to remove the one individual capable of neutralizing his plague.
Heskal’s primary contingency had failed.
Yet, the disciple of Dremule remained unbothered.
Neither man showed fear.
“A temporary setback. Who could possibly dismantle what my Master spent years perfecting in a single day?”
That was a valid point.
Even if she had, Heskal remained convinced that the conclusion of this war was already written.