A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 736

Chapter 736

What is the proper footwork for a spear thrust when the grip is held wide?
Brunhilt already understood the solution intuitively.
“Why did your center of gravity shift?”
Enkrid posed that question relentlessly. Every time he did, Brunhilt would use her spear as a support and sink into deep contemplation.
The scene likely appeared comical—one student practicing at will while the instructor scrutinized every twitch of a muscle.
Could this truly be defined as teaching?
Regardless, it was effective.
Her progress was startling. Beyond that, she possessed an tireless work ethic. If such dedication isn’t the definition of talent, it is certainly its twin.
She held a different sort of blessing—not merely an innate gift, but the psychological stamina to find delight even when her body was spent.
Despite the monotony of repetitive strikes, Brunhilt’s gaze remained vibrant.
“How many repetitions remain?”
“One hundred per day.”
When instructed to perform nothing but basic lunges and staff transitions, she beamed as if she were being offered a prize.
Enkrid’s primary expertise lay in the blade, yet his history included spear mastery as well. He steered her growth using his foundational knowledge, utilizing a Socratic method of inquiry to transfer the techniques he had made part of his soul.
The core truth was the application of force.
The specific tool held in the palm mattered very little.
She would eventually uncover the essence on her own. Brunhilt simply required the methodology. Enkrid was effectively placing markers along the trail she was destined to blaze.
When Enkrid snapped a branch from a tree, stripped the foliage, and wielded it like a practice sword, Brunhilt met his movements with enthusiastic spear work.
He dedicated half his day to this pursuit.
Yet, a sense of incompleteness lingered.
Brunhilt possessed terrifying potential, but she had a tendency to bypass the intermediate stages of mastery. It didn’t present a crisis at the moment—
But foundational understanding is paramount before progressing.
That was a point of concern.
He wasn’t in a position to compose an entire combat treatise on a whim.
That implied he would need to remain in the settlement for at least six months.
That was an impossibility.
His initial intent was merely to neutralize the local danger. No matter the ferocity of the creatures, as long as they showed themselves, he could handle it. He was merely biding his time for their arrival.
I only need to thin their ranks.
That was the duty of a knight. Should any abominations manifest, he would hunt them for forty-eight hours if necessary—cutting, piercing, and purging.
Currently, there were no tracks, but with a concentrated effort, he could locate them quickly.
Enkrid didn’t claim to be a master tracker, but he was far from incompetent.
One could easily vanish in these peaks, but by maintaining a central camp and limiting the radius of exploration, the risk of becoming lost was neutralized.
It isn’t as if I am Ragna.
The beast crisis terrorizing Harkventyo didn’t weigh heavily on Enkrid’s mind.
Soon, the sun began its descent. Mountainous terrain swallows the light early. Unless one resided on an elevated plateau like the Zaun, such an early dusk was inevitable.
The towering ridges intercepted the light, casting long shadows and stretching Brunhilt’s silhouette across the dirt.
“Heh.”
The girl continued her drills, a smile still fixed on her face. The sunset bled into the atmosphere behind her. A golden-orange hue touched her form, touched Enkrid, and blanketed the entire community.
A romantic might describe it as a comforting, soft radiance.
A spectral hand reaching out to comfort those who had struggled through the day just to see the evening.
Within that light, he began to see ghosts. The countenances of those he had failed to shield, the fallen he couldn’t reclaim, manifested in his mind’s eye.
No matter how many times he lived through this day, those shadows remained anchored to him.
Certain marks are permanent. Some wounds close, but the distortion of the skin remains forever.
“Save us.”
He had gambled his existence on those pleas—and he had lost. Enkrid had rescued no one.
“Anyone. Please. Someone has to step in. It shouldn’t end like this. This isn’t justice.”
They had labeled this a colony of the damned. A father who failed to strike down a nobleman who kidnapped his child, now a man on the run.
Others had been ruined simply because they lacked the coin for a city’s entry tolls.
In the midst of the amber dusk, fractured memories clawed at his consciousness.
He had played the scenario in his head for years. Would the outcome have shifted if a savior had arrived then?
That savior…
He felt no surge of arrogance, yet the hair on his arms stood up, and a slight tremor passed through him.
Enkrid had transformed into that very savior—the figure he had hallucinated in a thousand “what-if” scenarios.
Through the haze of memory, a woman wearing an apron with braided hair stepped forward and spoke:
“Do you think we harbor hate? If not for your intervention, no one would have tried. That is why… you can put the burden down now. You have done more than enough.”
The dull throb in his chest escalated into a rhythm he felt in his throat. He saw no reason to suppress it. Enkrid permitted his tears to fall.
It wasn’t a grand gesture of mourning.
He was simply allowing the tide of feeling to recede.
“Yah!”
Beside him, the young prodigy drove her spear forward.
She, too, might grow up to become someone else’s “savior” one day. The thought lingered as he watched her.

—

Under the shadow of the beastmen’s looming threat, Harkventyo had found no rest. The dark circles under his eyes spoke of his exhaustion. Terror and stress were eating him alive.
If we flee toward the city in this state…
They would be relegated to the gutters and slums.
Would that truly be a victory?
Perhaps it was preferable to a mass grave.
What was the correct path?
Harkventyo understood that life rarely offered a “correct” path. That was a bitter truth earned over four decades of survival.
But was this a life worth living?
Should they endure fifty years as property?
Or live five years as free men?
If they fell protecting their homes, they would die with their dignity intact.
But if they crawled to the city for sanctuary…
They would live in a state of perpetual hopelessness.
Ultimately, it was no different than returning to their chains.
Even navigating the mountain pass was a monumental gamble.
Could I even ensure the survival of half the village?
“Urgh…”
The mental strain became physical, and he doubled over, retching. His stomach was empty, leaving him to cough up nothing but bitter yellow bile.
His throat, eyes, and even his nose felt as though they were being seared.
He felt like a piece of offal trapped in a pressure cooker.
“Hah…”
He inhaled deeply, forced himself upright, and looked at the horizon—the sun was nearly gone.
Seeing the fading light brought back the image of the black-haired man with the striking face.
That warrior had dispatched the beast in a heartbeat. Was he the salvation they prayed for?
But what if there was a catch? What if his price was too high? Could they even pay?
What if he demands my daughter?
Would he make that trade? If giving up one soul meant the survival of the village, was it his right to do so?
The mental loop was agonizing. He knew the pragmatic choice—but his heart refused it.
No. That wasn’t the way. Harkventyo knew another truth of the world:
One must earn their own rescue. True salvation cannot be handed out by a stranger.
“Stop carrying the world on your shoulders, Harben.”
A man in his sixties approached. His spine was bent, and his vision was clouded by cataracts.
“Everyone here will choose their own fate. That is how we have survived this long.”
“…I am aware.”
“If that mercenary asks for the impossible, we will meet him with steel.”
The old man had seen right through Harkventyo’s anxiety.
“The monsters must be dealt with first.”
That was the priority. The purple twilight turned to black. As if offended by the darkness, two moons and a sea of stars flared into existence.
Harkventyo, however, had no peace to spare for the night sky. His mind was occupied by the looming terror of a sudden attack.
And that terror finally arrived, like a massive bell being struck. It wasn’t a pleasant chime.
Boom! Crack!
Harkventyo’s village was nestled in a small valley screened by ancient timber.
From the sky, it would look like a perfect circle, hidden away by nature.
The deafening snap of one of those massive trees echoed like a thunderclap.
“Bear!”
A voice cried out. Harkventyo knew it belonged to Jerry. A man with sharp senses and a talent for fletching.
He had been on edge lately, rigging alarms on the perimeter after feeling watched. He wasn’t the only one losing sleep.
Harkventyo seized the spear resting against his dwelling and bolted toward the noise.
“If it’s a bear beast, you’re all dead! Hide! Get inside!”
An elderly man shrieked with a voice that betrayed his frail appearance.
But running wouldn’t save them.
Harkventyo knew that in his bones.
He reached the site of the crash and saw the source.
It stood on two legs—a mountain of fur and muscle. People often used the phrase “as large as a house.” This was a literal description.
The massive creature was spraying jets of dark blood into the air.
More specifically, he saw a beastman with its throat partially torn open, lashing out with its talons.
And standing before it, a man parried the bear’s massive limb—using nothing but his bare hands.
Was he dreaming? Was this a hallucination?
It was a reasonable question.
Harkventyo had never encountered a knight. Most commoners lived and died without ever seeing one.
It was only because of the shifting wars across the continent that the secret martial orders had begun to appear in the eyes of the public.
But this village was isolated. Its inhabitants were oblivious to world affairs.
So, the sight before them was beyond their comprehension.
Taking down the wild dogs had been impressive. Their movement had been a blur.
But this—this was a different category of existence.
They could at least envision fighting the dogs.
But a bear beast? A creature the size of a cottage?

—

Before the cry of “bear” went up—before the tree even hit the ground—
Enkrid had snapped awake, driven by a premonition, and bolted from his bed. Aside from his attire, his only equipment was a set of fabric gauntlets.
He didn’t even have the seconds required to pull them on. He simply snatched Three Iron and hurried out.
He struck the leather flap of the tent, producing a sharp crack, and stepped into the thick scent of iron and musk.
With a scent that heavy, tracking was effortless. Sharpening his awareness, he heard the violent splintering of wood.
A massive entity was approaching.
Its presence was like a physical weight. As Enkrid closed the distance, a villager caught sight of it under the moon and screamed—”Bear!”
An enormous shadow lunged out of the darkness, the kind of horror that makes a man’s legs fail him.
At least, for an ordinary man.
Enkrid sprinted forward and grabbed the man directly in the beast’s path by the scruff of his neck.
The man was paralyzed in mid-shout.
Predatory monsters possess the ability to freeze humans with a single look. That is the core of a monster’s aura.
The victim’s own terror becomes their cage.
The primary stage of the Will of Rejection…
Was the discarding of fear.
The thought occurred to Enkrid as he moved. He had the luxury of wandering thoughts—he had reacted so quickly that he now had a surplus of time to analyze the situation.
That mental space was a reward for his speed.
He tossed the man behind him. The villager’s feet left the earth.
“U-uh, wha—”
The man couldn’t even find his voice before hitting the ground hard.
The bear monster lunged, swiping with massive claws.
Despite its size, its speed was terrifying. It even managed to adjust its trajectory mid-swing to target Enkrid instead of its original prey—proof that it possessed a rudimentary tactical mind.
Enkrid angled his blade upward.
The steel of Three Iron looked like a twig compared to the bear’s massive limb—yet that “twig” deflected the giant’s strike with clinical precision.
CLANG.
The talons are dense.
The moon provided ample light. It wasn’t day, but it was enough to study the monster’s features.
The left eye is gone.
An old wound. There was also a white, crescent-shaped patch on its chest.
The transformation into a monster had granted it unnatural power and claws with the density of metal.
A few more observations surfaced, but he discarded them. He was still refining his use of Lua Gharne-style tactical combat.
He took in every scrap of data—but the art was in filtering out the noise.
If he didn’t, his mind would seize.
So he filtered. He ignored the irrelevant.
He shoved the descending claw aside with the flat of Three Iron—and transitioned into a horizontal strike aimed at the throat.
The sword drew two distinct lines in the moonlight.
Deflection, then a lethal cut.
THWACK!
Dark ichor erupted, and the creature emitted a wet, choking sound—a cry of pure agony.
Even with a shredded throat, it swung its other arm.
Now that is useful data.
The monstrous transformation gave it a grotesque resilience. Even as its throat was opened, the vessels began to knit and fuse in an attempt to heal.
And despite the fatal trauma—it refused to stop.
The bear’s second hand came crashing down. Enkrid caught it with his bare palm.
That left his sword hand completely free.
The bear monster fought to its final breath. It unhinged its jaws, trying to crush Enkrid’s skull even as its head lolled from its severed neck.
A level of ferocity that defied common logic.
Truly remarkable.
Enkrid focused—and activated the Blade of Coincidence.
His movements became a sequence of perfect inevitabilities.
Three Iron shifted from a wide sweep into a precise thrust—burying itself into the bear’s jaw, locking its mouth open.
THUNK! CRUNCH!
The beast’s teeth clamped down on the steel. Enkrid retracted his grip and stepped in deep with his right leg.
In that heartbeat, he shifted his weight to a left-handed orientation.
His right hand drew the blade back—while his left fist drove forward.
The monster’s head—pinned by the sword—was perfectly aligned.
Enkrid’s entire body, from ankle to hip, rotated into the blow.
His left fist delivered a strike that merged Balraf-style hand-to-hand combat with a sword-based impact he had mirrored from Ragna.
His Will flooded into the strike—
BOOM!
The bear’s skull shattered, and a spray of brains and blood painted the trees. Enkrid snapped his hand to clear the fluid.
Without his protective gear, the black gore stained his skin.
He didn’t relax his guard.
Even with the primary threat neutralized, the air still smelled of predators.
In the shadows of the forest, two panther monsters were stalking him.
If he hesitated—they would be on him.
The thought formed—and the body reacted.
BOOM—Enkrid’s heel shattered the dirt as he launched himself.
The moon glinted off Three Iron as it became a streak of silver light—racing toward the panthers in the dark.