A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Only Encrid and Torres, who were following behind her, could barely hear her frustrated voice.

The three of them had turned back not long ago when they encountered a group of soldiers.

Finn, who was leaning against a gently curving corner, peeked her head out and threw the torch she was holding behind her.

As the light source flew away with a whoosh, the only remaining light was the faintly glowing torch ahead.

It meant that the surroundings were now dark.

Torres crouched down, his gaze fixed forward.

Though he couldn’t see through the darkness, he had undergone training for such situations, allowing him to estimate the number of enemies and their equipment.

“Damn, there are a lot of them.”

There were over twenty of them, even at a glance. And their equipment was formidable.

They were armed with crossbows and carried short swords at their waists, all similarly equipped.

What did this indicate?

‘They’re a trained unit.’

The problem was that they weren’t just some ragtag group of mercenaries.

A group of trained soldiers was more dangerous than most monsters or beasts, especially in a narrow cave like this, armed with crossbows.

‘We’re screwed.’

While Torres observed the enemy, Finn was contemplating.

Should they turn back and head towards the Cross Guard instead?

Was their retreat blocked?

Or was there something else on the path they originally intended to take?

As Finn and Torres were sinking into light panic, silencing their thoughts to avoid making any noise, Encrid suddenly burst out.

“Messenger, this is Captain Roger’s messenger!”

Not only did he emerge, but he also did so loudly.

Torres was shocked.

Finn was even more shocked.

She couldn’t even think of reaching out or making a sound, completely taken aback.

‘Crazy bastard.’

It was practically a suicide move.

Even if only a few of the crossbowmen fired, they’d be skewered.

Encrid surely knew this, yet he charged out without hesitation.

It made sense.

Roger was the name of the spear unit commander.

By shouting something that would catch the enemy off guard, he had made them hesitate.

“If there’s no opening, you make one. Fair play? Does that save lives?”

These were the words spoken by Jaxon.

Deceiving the enemy? Why not, if necessary?

Aspiring to be a knight didn’t mean becoming a fool who only fought duels. Honor was for situations where it was necessary.

‘They set traps, used a sorcerer’s tricks, and even employed lycanthropes, so what now?’

But it wasn’t just about deceiving the enemy and wasting the day. When the tension in his shoulders eased, his field of vision widened.

A wider perspective revealed what Encrid could do and what he could gain.

Past experiences and recent ones. Today’s recurring events.

What to hope for and gain in these gaps.

There’s no need to struggle just to escape today.

‘A battle against many.’

Fighting elite soldiers was not a common experience. Especially in a situation where they were trapped and could neither advance nor retreat.

This was different from the tall grass field, where they could simply avoid conflict.

Pikes and arrows, the commander’s orders, a front blocked by shields, and a rear bombarded with arrows.

One wrong move could lead to death in an instant.

While one might dodge a few arrows if they really tried, how could they avoid a rain of arrows?

It wasn’t as if they could impersonate a knight and deflect all the arrows with a sword.

Thus, there was no time to practice swordsmanship in a standoff with elite soldiers.

Such battles ended in an instant.

One moment of complacency could lead to death.

In such moments, what should one do? What should be the weapon?

The line that connects dots.

Seeing the dots and connecting the lines both happen in an instant.

One realization emerged.

‘Quick decision-making.’

It’s about making fast decisions to exploit fleeting opportunities.

Even if they stayed here, it wouldn’t take long—perhaps only half a candle’s burn time—before the spear unit arrived.

So what needed to be done now was clear.

They needed to cut the throat of the damn crossbow unit commander and cause chaos.

Without confronting the arrows, there was no hope for tomorrow.

“Captain Roger? A messenger?”

This place is a cave. It’s difficult to recognize faces without bringing a torch closer.

It’s even harder to identify the uniform of Aspen’s forces.

And even if there was someone with keen eyesight, how could they closely observe Encrid’s swiftly approaching figure?

“Enemy! Enemy!”

Encrid shouted anything that might confuse the opponent.

“Damn! A monster!”

The pupils of the commander, who had blocked their retreat, trembled. Of course, Encrid couldn’t see that.

He didn’t need to.

With the distance closed and the torchlight illuminating faces, Encrid had identified the commander. Crucially, he knew who the commander was.

He charged at them.

“What? Stop!”

The enemy soldiers at the front shouted, but their reaction was too slow.

Wasn’t this momentary gap the reason for all the noise until now?

Though Encrid covered dozens of steps in an instant, he had no time to catch his breath.

Sching.

He drew his sword, gripped it with both hands, pulled it to the right, and swung horizontally from right to left, in a high horizontal slash. The helmet and armor worn by the enemy did not protect their necks.

Since the two standing to his left were of similar height, he could leave slash marks on both their necks with a single strike.

Squelch!

Blood gushed from the severed necks.

“Oh, what the hell!”

As the shocked enemy soldiers reacted, Encrid saw the commander retreating and moved his right hand.

Holding the sword with his left hand, he mimicked striking his waist with his right hand before thrusting it forward.

Whizz!

It was a whistling dagger, far more dangerous and sharper than a regular throwing knife, that pierced through the commander’s leather helmet.

If anyone survived with a blade embedded more than halfway into their head…

‘They wouldn’t be human.’

“Kill him!”

Three or four enemy soldiers drew their short swords with a clang.

Encrid, grateful that the cave was spacious, untied the buckler from his back and threw it.

Thud!

The round shield flew and struck the head of a soldier holding a crossbow a few steps away.

“Oof!”

Using the shield to buy time by hitting the crossbowman aiming at him, Encrid pulled his sword to his chest.

He then slightly angled his body to deflect the oncoming slashes of the short swords.

Clang! Cling! Clang!

It was a technique using the flat of the blade to parry, though it wasn’t much of a technique. He was merely using his sword as a shield.

Then, he acted.

“Ha!”

He suddenly shouted, startling his opponents.

Observing the positions of the soldiers and the direction of the crossbows, Encrid leaped into action.

He didn’t just roll, he grabbed an enemy soldier’s ankle and twisted it as he rolled to the side.

Crunch.

The soldier lost his balance and collapsed as Encrid twisted around like a snake, standing up.

With his left arm, he wrapped around the soldier’s neck.

With his right hand, he grabbed and twisted the enemy’s right wrist upward.

The short sword the enemy held dropped to the ground.

Thud.

The sound of the blade hitting the dirt was barely audible.

“Kk.”

Killing the enemy was for amateurs. Keeping them alive was crucial for survival.

Crossbows were deadly if fired from a distance in a cluster, but with the gap closed and a proper shield, they could be endured.

And having discarded his buckler, Encrid had found himself a new meat shield.

‘Reminds me of the first day.’

Back then, he had also picked up a shield.

This time was no different, except the shield was human rather than wooden.

As he leaned against the wall, the crossbowmen hesitated, as did the soldiers with short swords.

“I’m alone! Come at me, all of you! Long live Captain Roger! Are you Aspen’s dogs just carrying those crossbows for show?”

During the brief silence, Encrid spouted nonsense.

And he kept going without stopping.

“Come on, all of you! Can’t even handle one person? Is that how Captain Roger taught you?”

‘It’s about time they made a move.’

He wasn’t talking nonsense for no reason.

Even if they were slow to catch on, now was the right time to act.

And his expectation was met.

Pat.

The Ail Caraz-Style martial arts could subdue a person without a sound.

Darkness, torches, commotion, nonsense—all of these could serve to temporarily conceal one’s presence.

“That crazy bastard, shoot him!”

“Hey, no, don’t! Don’t shoot!”

Excited soldiers and the one whose neck and wrist were being held shouted alternately.

This was the perfect moment. The more time they bought, the better.

Even now, somewhere behind them, Finn was likely knocking out or strangling enemies one by one with Ail Caraz-Style techniques, and Torres was probably making quiet “pop” sounds as he shot bolts into the throats or heads of the enemy soldiers.

In a direct confrontation, the two might be at a disadvantage, but with the situation turned around like this, it was a completely different story. Now, who had the upper hand? Who was surrounded?

“The day breaks, the darkness retreats, the sun shines, and the moon fades! Roger! Roger!”

Encrid continued to shout to mask the presence of Finn and Torres. He even made up a song, singing in rhythm.

The commander was dead with a blade in his head, and two others had also died with screams.

The chaos that followed was overwhelming, with the instigator continuing to spout nonsense.

It was enough to drive anyone mad.

“Damn it, what are we supposed to do?”

One of the enemy soldiers was in anguish, thinking it might be better to just shoot the captive in the head. The death of their commander had left them directionless.

As they hesitated, they heard the twang of a crossbow string.

Thump!

A bolt flew and embedded itself in the head of their captured comrade.

‘Oh.’

Someone had finally shot.

“Kill him.”

It was likely muttered by the soldier who fired the shot.

Even though this was a well-trained unit, they understood that such actions could lead to the worst-case scenario.

“Raise the torches! Behind me!”

At that moment, Finn and Torres were discovered.

They weren’t top-tier assassins, after all.

This was inevitable, but in the meantime, they had taken out six soldiers with crossbows.

‘Not bad.’

This wasn’t the first time this day had repeated. There hadn’t been many days when they managed to take down six enemies.

Next up, Encrid pushed the human shield forward. The corpse, trembling with a quarrel bolt lodged in its head, fell forward. And just as the body was falling forward, in that split second, Encrid pulled out the whistling daggers from his side and waist and threw them.

Extending his elbow, he flicked his fingers.

Skipping the step of dropping his hand, he quickly moved.

In the blink of an eye, six whistling daggers flew out.

Whizz!

A sharp sound.

Thud!

A dull thud.

After creating six more corpses like that, only one soldier with a crossbow and two soldiers in a defensive stance with short swords remained.

It all happened in an instant.

For the enemy soldiers, it was a nightmare.

And just as they were about to finish them off without a fight.

“Forward.”

A deep voice echoed through the passageway.

It was Roger, the spear unit commander, announcing his arrival.

He came from the opposite end of the passageway that Encrid’s group had traversed.

Thud, thud, thud.

The synchronized footsteps shook the ground and the air.

The remaining soldiers from the archer unit gathered to one side.

Roger and his unit appeared, illuminated by ten or so torches.

He was calm, scanning the area with an indifferent expression despite seeing his fallen comrades.

One would expect some degree of panic if the group tasked with blocking the escape had been decimated.

Thirty trained elite spear soldiers.

Roger’s gaze briefly landed on Encrid and then on Finn.

“You’re lucky, like a wildcat.”

“It’s not luck, it’s skill, bastard.”

The two glared at each other as if they could kill with their eyes.

The crackling of the torches echoed through the silent cave.

It was already clear from the first encounter that there was a personal history between the two.

Encrid didn’t pay much attention to that.

Instead, as Roger and his spear unit stopped at a certain distance, he moved again.

With a swift leap, he lunged towards the three gathered archers.

He thrust his sword, piercing another enemy’s throat.

As he retrieved his sword with a sickening squelch, the sound of a crossbow string twanging reached his ears. Encrid quickly ducked.

The quarrel bolt whizzed past, just grazing his hair.

‘That was close.’

That was indeed a stroke of luck, he hadn’t expected them to fire a quarrel bolt so suddenly.

Realizing this luck was rare, he fully capitalized on it.

“I can see everything.”

He pretended to charge at the soldier who had fired the crossbow, only to veer off and stab his sword into another enemy’s head.

Thud!

After partially splitting the skull, Encrid retrieved his sword and pretended to retreat, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the remaining enemy.

The increased light from the torches held by the spear unit illuminated the area, making Encrid’s expression and gaze clearly visible to the enemy soldier.

The soldier, seeing Encrid’s expression, assumed there was an enemy behind him.

Especially since several had already been killed from behind.

But as the soldier turned around in alarm, he saw only darkness.

The darkness of the unlit passage, the cave, and the faintly falling dirt.

As the soldier turned his head back, he saw a glimmer of light.

It was the light reflected off a heavy, large piece of metal.

Thud.

Just as the soldier turned his gaze back, Encrid lunged again, stabbing the soldier in the neck and killing him. This, too, happened in an instant.

It was at this moment that Roger, unable to hold back, was about to shout “Charge!”

“Message from Resha!”

Encrid played another trick.

Hearing that, Roger hesitated. Resha was the name of the key wizard involved in this matter, how could he not be surprised?

“Run!”

And then Encrid suddenly shouted.

“What?”

Torres reflexively ran, even as he questioned the command.

Finn, without a word, grabbed two crossbows and followed Encrid’s lead.

“Capture them!”

Roger’s furious shout echoed behind them.

The spear unit wasn’t as heavily armored as the heavy infantry, so they wouldn’t be impossible to pursue.

Once they got out of the cave, they could run even while holding their spears.

As Encrid ran, thoughts raced through his mind.

The same went for Torres and Finn. They had many questions about the unfolding situation, but there was no time or breath to ask.

Now was the time to run.

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