A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

The same day, yet a slightly different day. A day when Enkrid realized that the technique learned from his right foot applied differently to his left foot, and another day of repetition.

Sometimes, the ferryman would appear, but Enkrid still respected his opinion and kept silent.

The ferryman no longer got angry over these things. This bastard was always like this. The ferryman simply said what he needed to say.

"It's already over."

He spoke as a bard who sang of despair, as a farmer who planted the seeds of defeat.

Enkrid naturally ignored the ferryman's words, focusing instead on the method of gathering the Will in his left foot after mastering it in his right.

No matter what was said in front of him, he kept doing it.

When he gathered the Will in his right foot, it felt like striking with a straight sword, so he tried the same with his left, but it didn't work.

Why?

It was, in the end, a matter of control. If he could move his hands and feet, why couldn't he move it?

It was invisible, but it came from his own body, and yet it didn't move as he wanted. It was simply a matter of repeating and repeating.

The ferryman's expression subtly changed as he looked ahead.

His eyes seemed a little wider, his jaw slightly lifted. Just that small change in his expression made him look different.

With this new expression, the ferryman spoke, but his tone and words were different from before. "Reduce it."

It was an endless, nonsensical statement. Enkrid blinked, unsure of what the ferryman meant.

Sometimes, Enkrid felt like the ferryman wasn't just one person, but this was the first time he had seen his personality shift so dramatically in front of him.

The ferryman immediately returned to his usual self. Today, the ferryman seemed to enjoy talking nonsense endlessly.

"Go. Go and enjoy it. The day full of nothing but torment, with no fun at all."

After repeating the same day over fifty times, Enkrid finally learned the method of gathering the Will in his left

foot.

It felt like learning how to move each of his fingers for the first time.

He could feel it and knew it was attached to his body, but to move it, he had to focus each part and then forget to focus again.

Only then could it be used naturally.

To grip the sword at his waist, how should his fingers move?

From the simple action of placing the grip between the thumb and index finger to adding strength to the third, fourth, and fifth fingers, and finally to gripping with the palm.

He was relearning everything. Beyond relearning, it felt like he was learning to breathe again.

It was about consciously repeating what had once been unconscious, then returning it to the realm of the unconscious.

Every step was unfamiliar, but if it was something he could repeat,

Could you throw a large rock like a pebble? It would be easy then.

Such thoughts crossed his mind.

As Enkrid continued repeating today, he saw many things.

Had it all started with Audin, who emitted light?

"Take it."

thought it would be easy.

It was when Enkrid was struggling to breathe after incorrectly activating his Will. Jaxon tried to give him a strange medicine-though Enkrid didn't know what it was, it seemed like a very rare medicine.

The pill was about twice the size of his thumbnail, round, pink, and its surface looked hard.

The smell of it was different. As soon as Enkrid inhaled, his mind cleared and his vision sharpened.

If he took it, he felt like he wouldn't die. His instincts told him so.

"It's a medicine that can bring the dead back to life. Give up on the Will."

Jaxon said that if he took it, he would become a vegetable, but it would keep him alive.

In Jaxon's eyes, there was a heat that hadn't been there before. His eyes seemed to burn with the intensity of someone who would beat him until the end if Enkrid refused to take the medicine.

It was Jaxon's last resort, unable to watch Enkrid die. Enkrid refused. If he just stayed quiet and endured, it would be over.

As Enkrid's dying eyes watched Jaxon's face, he saw it contort. It was a look so crumpled that even he doubted if he had really seen it. Did he ever think Jaxon could make such a face?

That was one of today's moments.

And there were other moments too.

As Enkrid moved toward death, when he briefly gained a reprieve from the pain, it was then.

"Come out!"

Rem chose a rough method. His insides were being burned by the Will, and he was only able to gasp out his last breaths. Rem's hair began to flutter as he stood in front of the dying Enkrid.

It wasn't clear exactly what Rem was doing, but Enkrid could feel it instinctively.

Rem was doing something similar to what Audin had done with his light and what Jaxon had tried with the medicine.

He was right.

It was a resurrection spell.

A/N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ forbidden technique that consumed its user's life force, similar to the teleportation magic Enkrid had suffered through.

In what way? In the sense that luck was required.

Rem failed. Despite his exceptional talent and lifespan, he couldn't catch the soul of the dying Enkrid.

Enkrid's body began to stiffen once again.

"Damn!"

Enkrid heard Rem's voice full of anger. In an instant, the wrinkles deepened Rem's face.

This wasn't the end of the three.

As he learned how to send the Will to his right arm, left arm, and each body part, he died several times.

If there was even a single breath left, he tried the same method.

"Take it. Make it stay in your body. You can survive."

Shinar tried to give him the energy she had stored in her body. It came in the form of a green, fist-sized light, and it touched Enkrid's back, but it was useless.

"Cough."

The fairy's energy scattered aimlessly, and a part of Shinar's body, her arm, turned to dust.

Yet her expression remained calm. No, she even showed a faint smile.

"Go first."

It was a melancholy smile Shinar had never shown before

"Father, Lord-!"

Teresa loudly sang a hymn.

"I will embrace you in my world."

Esther said, her eyes reflecting the twinkling stars. The stars shone and tried to pull Enkrid's body toward somewhere.

Esther was planning to trap Enkrid in her spell world and hide him from the Grim Reaper's eyes. It was a trick using a curse, but of course, it didn't work.

"Where to?"

The curse was the ferryman's domain.

Most importantly, Esther wasn't even ready to cast the spell properly.

With the spell failing and mana reversing, Esther's two eyes burst open.

It looked as though Esther was crying blood, and that was another of today's events.

For some unknown reason, Bell also drove a statue-killer into his own side at a steep angle.

It was useless. Bell vomited blood as well.

This kind of today, that kind of today, I passed before Enkrid's eyes. They flowed like water. The pieces f cloth

that fell into the river soaked and sank, disappearing from sight.

In that disappeared today, everyone did something. Enkrid watched them as he died. He died, and died again.

"Did you enjoy watching?"

The ferryman asked. Enkrid didn't answer.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

"Give up. Move on. I've prepared a wall for you to overcome step by step. Isn't this the way you want to go?"

The ferryman spoke. How many times had today come? Enkrid hadn't counted. It didn't matter.

This today, if he wanted, was a day could leave anytime.

But was he still being stubborn? The ferryman said it was the wrong way, that Enkrid was stubbornly holding on, without any certainty of it being the right way, but why go on?

The ferryman's words were likely right.

Maybe his choice was wrong. So what?

If he had to go to know, then he would. Enkrid did just that.

"Don't you resent the heavens?"

The ferryman asked.

"Aren't you angry at the world?"

The ferryman asked again.

"In this world, a god who made you with such talent-don't you hate them?"

It's easy to find someone to blame. The ferryman endlessly urged him

Then, suddenly, a different personality popped up, saying this:

"Reduce it."

What should he reduce?

The momentary personality quickly disappeared. At some point, the ferryman stopped speaking and began

rummaging through Enkrid's memories.

Those who failed to protect what they had came into his dreams. The nightmare began. Darkness approached. "The one who dreams is the one who is worthy f realizing that dream."

The ferryman spoke, but it was already a path that had been walked. It was something Enkrid had experienced in

the desert.

What the ferryman had tried to take away was people, value, and meaning, and what Enkrid had lost was only

comfort.

Just because it couldn't be seen, it didn't mean that value, people, or meaning disappeared.

"Instead, I would wish for death."

Enkrid dreamed of an arrow flying through the air, piercing his heart.

'Face the darkness within you."

Even if one becomes a knight, what could a swordsman change?

Could he survive the desert?

What was so impressive about protecting a few people with a sword?

The ferryman murmured continuously. He kept shaking Enkrid.

Even if there were no illusions, was there no trace of soot?

There was. There were wounds, scars, and suffering. Even so, Enkrid knew how to move forward. And so, he did.

Enkrid moved his steps. Toward the sun, toward the dream he aimed to reach.

Would he live? Would he die?

Would he bet his life on something uncertain?

For what?

Enkrid had seen it in nightmares, in the repeated days, and in the past where he failed to protect someone, even in

the boy who dreamed of the herbalist he had once protected.

It was what could be called light, and if it was a flower, it was a flower, if it was a star, it was a star, if it was a

dream, it was a dream.

In the moment he whispered, repeating the light, the star, and the dream.

Only then did his vision, which had been looking ahead, suddenly widen, and he could see himself objectively.

It was a moment when he grasped a certain flow.

It was hard to put into words, but it was a kind of sensation he had found.

'Wrong."

Will was not something that had to be forced. No, having opened this path, it would be more accurate to say that

now Enkrid knew how to proceed.

The fragments of realization gained while crossing the desert connected and fused with past realizations.

From the first today, the thrust learned in struggle, to what had been learned after escaping the desert.

Complexity and simplicity.

Discarding and mixing.

Enkrid couldn't abandon anything he had learned, acquired, or awakened.

Oara had told him to discard it, but instead, he mixed it all together.

"Reduce it."

The ferryman spoke. Reduce what? It didn't matter what it was. Whether it was will, dream, purpose, ambition, or

greed, the ferryman wanted him to throw it away.

But Enkrid had no intention of doing so.

He would not reduce or discard anything.

What he had dreamed of as a knight, what he had sworn to protect, was everything behind him.

Not a single one of them would be left behind.

He had sworn to keep his vow from his childhood-to the stars, to the heavens, to the sun, and to the two moons.

The song sung by the bard gave a dream to a boy. A line of lyrics flew into his chest like a meteor, leaving a mark,

"Isn't the one who dreams worthy of realizing that dream?" Enkrid repeated this to himself countless times. He believed it. Even if it was blind faith, he would not break his will.

He would never again stand by and watch the child die behind him.

"No."

Enkrid answered. He would not reduce anything, a declaration of will.

In that instant, a storm surged within his body.

It wasn't forced movement. It had to be left alone. All that was needed was to hold onto what was necessary.

Enkrid felt the wind. The wind that pierced through his body.

Enkrid felt the sunlight. The sunlight that entered him and gave warmth. The sunlight and the wind blended

together, turning orange, filling his vision.

Enkrid had repeated today over five hundred times.

He was blind, and the place he was trapped in was a maze, but by touching and remembering each thing with his

hands, eventually found his way out.

"Truly mad."

The ferryman's admiration faded as his presence disappeared.

When Enkrid blinked, it was his favorite time of day. The time of sunset, when the sky was very close. The orange

light filling his view was the sunset.

If he reached out, he could touch the clouds, and if he swung his sword could defeat anyone.

Strength surged through his entire body.

A sense of omnipotence filled him. Every gaze that looked at him was clear in his mind.

In the midst of that feeling of being able to do anything, Enkrid distinctly and precisely separated what he should

do from what he should not.

Moreover, he now knew how to maintain the omnipotence that was rising from within him, the Will that was its

source.

"I should sleep."

Enkrid said, and closed his eyes.

Those who looked at him without a hint of laughter. One of them approached and supported his back.

***

"Is this right?"

The one who supported Enkrid's back was Rophod. He was close by for some reason.

The others didn't move at all. It didn't matter. No one would break their skulls just by falling backward.

Most importantly, they were so shocked that they couldn't even speak.

In the midst of this, Shinar's voice rang out.

"Is it right?" She asked, directed at the air,

"I think it is," Rem replied.

"It's right, Jaxon confirmed.

everyone.

"Did your father help?" Audin muttered in surprise.

Ragna repeatedly gripped and released his sword hilt.

Lua Gharne puffed her cheeks but couldn't make a sound. She was too shocked.

Two people didn't understand what had just happened.

Rophod and Bell.

What was this? Rophod, lacking intuition, had just moved in reaction to the words about resting.

Bell, as usual, held the idol killer grip and tilted his head.

Clearly, something had happened, something had changed, but he didn't know what it was.

But, inexplicably, his enthusiasm surged suddenly. After eating, sleeping, and resting, staring at the sunset, Bell

felt a shiver run through him when he saw Enkrid slowly blink his eyes and collapse.

He wanted to get up immediately, swing a sword, and do something.

Bell stood up, moved, and left the room. He headed to the training hall. He couldn't bear the surge energy.

Rophod felt the same way.

He, too, felt a kind of thrill and seemed to have gained some realization.

Both had been affected by the Will that Enkrid had unleashed without meaning to.

Esther, seated, opened just one of her eyes.

She called upon part of her spell world and saw a huge star in her vision.

'What did he do?"

She didn't know. But one thing was clear. That man had fulfilled the dream he always spoke of.

"Seeing everything, huh?" Rem said.

Everyone felt the same.

Jaxon, Audin, Ragna, and Lua Gharne included.

Frokk, who had the sense to discern talent, felt like he had been dreaming.

An absurd thing had happened.

Enkrid lost consciousness, and he didn't wake up until a week later.

Several things had happened in the meantime, but that didn't matter to anyone.

When Enkrid woke up, he thought to himself.

Nothing had changed.

He had simply taken a big step forward.

The Will that naturally remained within him made him think that way.