A Knight Who Eternally Regresses-Chapter 257: On Dealing with Fools (2)

Kraiss did as Enkrid instructed.

"A way to deal with the Black Blades."

Wasn’t that what he had been tasked to find?

Kraiss thought it over, turning the matter in his mind.

It was a given that the Black Blades would try something.

So, what would they do?

No, before that—how had he figured out they had such intentions?

Simple. Because the enemy had made it obvious.

That was why they were so "kind."

"Or just stupid."

He leaned toward the latter, but that wasn’t the important part.

"Think about it," he said.

"Think about what?"

"These bastards. They’re kind enough to let the captain know they won’t leave him alone, so he slits the throat of the one who said it, and what do they do? They send another person."

Kraiss spoke as he walked into a patch of sunlight.

Pulling his coat tighter against the cold morning air, he continued.

Meanwhile, Enkrid was swinging his sword this way and that, experimenting with different movements.

To Kraiss, it looked like someone stirring stew with a ladle—literally just flailing about.

"This time, they send someone who isn’t even one of their own. Kind enough not to kill them. Makes you wonder if they’re actually just really soft-hearted, doesn’t it?"

"Bandits? Soft-hearted?"

"Or just stupid."

The conclusion was simple. The enemy was stupid, or at least stupidly kind.

Even so, Kraiss couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring grim scenarios.

It was in his nature, shaped by his upbringing and his own cautious personality.

"What if they send a knight?"

Could they handle a knight if it came to that?

Kraiss’s gaze drifted to Enkrid, who was training with his sword. His eyes also caught the closed door of their lodging behind him—dark brown wood set in a rough stone frame.

Inside that door were a barbarian bundled in furs and warming stones to ward off the cold, a bear of a man who had beaten a priest senseless just the day before because he’d been in a bad mood, and a troublemaker who wandered off without a sense of direction.

Not to mention a brooding atmosphere-killer who vanished without warning, a half-giant ex-cultist, and a beastman who used to be a thief.

"Could we even match a knight?"

A glimmer of hope momentarily pierced his grim thoughts, but it was nonsense.

A knight was a knight—monstrous and catastrophic in their prowess.

Kraiss shook his head to banish the notion.

"So, what’s the plan?"

Enkrid was still swinging his sword, trying out steps that to Kraiss looked almost like a clumsy dance—stirring stew to a rhythm.

Watching his commander, Kraiss’s mind cycled through grim possibilities yet again before he finally spoke.

"We have to do everything we can."

He meant it. The enemy had been kind enough to signal their intent to attack.

"If I were them..."

If he were the leader of the Black Blades, plotting to eliminate this group...

"The captain’s a quasi-knight who’s achieved Will."

And the rest of the squad? Monsters, every one of them.

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The dwarf saw people as metal through his insights.

The elf likened others to flora and fauna with her uncanny sensitivity.

And Kraiss? He saw his squad members as gold coins.

"How many coins?"

Immeasurable. For now, his own estimation couldn’t even gauge their worth.

They might look like a band of troublemakers to others, but from a broader perspective...

"Incomparable strength."

Viewed externally, their power would undoubtedly be seen as excessive.

Kraiss’s mind turned, rapidly calculating what the Black Blades could attempt. What they would do. What they might already be planning. His thoughts coalesced into four possibilities.

"Assassination, ambush, poison, or subversion."

Those were the main threats.

Enkrid wasn’t a fool, either. He paused his training, though his next move didn’t come immediately.

He had just failed an attempt at imitating a serpent’s step.

"Perhaps the trouble will start on our way back."

"And the plan?"

At the repeated question, Kraiss made one suggestion.

"If we request support from Captain Torres—no, Battalion Commander Torres now—would he lend us troops?"

"Probably."

Why wouldn’t he?

The real issue would be the timeline. Torres couldn’t leave his territory unprotected for long.

Enkrid didn’t need to point this out; Kraiss already knew. Martai was stretched thin as it was.

Hence, they were hiring mercenaries and converting them into private forces—a large-scale effort funded by pouring krona into eliminating the monsters and beasts infesting the Grateful Forest area.

Enkrid considered Martai’s preparations, the colony battles, and his own training.

What could the border guards do to ensure the safety of trade routes?

"Expanding their patrol areas?"

It was a vague thought, but it needed deeper contemplation.

"We’ll head back as soon as the dwarf delivers our weapons, right?"

"Immediately."

Unless something went wrong, that was the plan.

"Understood."

Kraiss disappeared by mid-morning, leaving Enkrid to his own time. His time with the sword.

Earlier, he and Audin had practiced the Isolation Technique together.

Audin’s words lingered in his mind.

"Why do you train your body? If you’ve found that answer, the next step is ‘how.’ Haven’t I already shown you the method?"

Audin was a good teacher. His words meant one thing: think for yourself.

He claimed he’d already laid the groundwork.

Enkrid wasn’t dull or foolish. His body’s refusal to cooperate had always been the problem.

But now?

"To move forward."

To face tomorrow. To be ready for it.

That resolve remained the same, but there was one difference—he was twice as excited as before.

Enkrid swung his sword. It didn’t matter if it felt meaningless.

This was how he thought.

This was his form of meditation.

He entered his own world, sinking into it, observing, contemplating, and understanding.

Layering thoughts atop his previous realizations.

"No one tells me what swordsmanship I should master."

Even Ragna, who had taught him the Middle Sword Form, didn’t mind if he used something else.

Ragna stood nearby, swinging a massive, crude blade forged in the border guards’ smithy.

No elaborate movements—just a straightforward, powerful downward strike.

The sunlight seemed to slice against the blunt blade.

"Cut, and cut again."

No matter the obstacle, it would cut through. That was Ragna’s swordsmanship—the essence of the Middle Sword Form.

Enkrid reviewed what he had learned.

The Valen Mercenary Style was an illusory swordsmanship.

The Nameless Style was precise and direct.

Ragna’s teachings were about power and weight.

From Ragna, he had learned the basics of fluid swordsmanship and developed it further on his own—learning to read, react, and flow against his opponents.

"No, I learned that from Audin too."

The Balraf Method, a martial art that turned the body into a weapon.

The shortest weapon a human could wield.

So, what was its foundation?

Flow, speed, weight, lightness—all mixed together.

The Balraf Method of martial arts was an encompassing technique—a perfected ideal.

But it wasn’t swordsmanship. Yet, Enkrid found he could graft parts of it onto his blade.

Immersed in his practice, Enkrid reflected on what he had learned, focusing his attention on the Flexible Sword Technique.

Even during physical training, he prioritized flexibility.

Lifting heavy stones or steel weights was part of it, but just as important were the hours spent stretching and relaxing every strand of muscle.

All to cultivate flexibility.

Why the Flexible Sword Technique?

Because he had fully unlocked his sixth sense.

"The Flexible Sword is defensive, a guard technique."

And the most critical factor for such a style was vision—or, more broadly, perception.

To redirect the contact point of power, one needed to see and understand it properly.

Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling—it all blurred together into a singular sense.

Where his sixth sense had once been merely an extension of his primary five, now it felt like a completely new perception.

They didn’t call it "opening a third eye" for nothing.

At some point, Jaxon appeared, sitting on a roughly-hewn stone chair.

A massive boulder embedded in the ground had been crudely shaped into a seat.

Though it must have been freezing in the winter air, Jaxon didn’t seem to care.

Why would he?

Jaxon’s training had been far harsher. A cold seat like this wasn’t enough to register as discomfort.

From his vantage, he watched Enkrid.

"What drives him?"

The question remained unanswered, as always.

Yet, just as persistently, Jaxon found his reasons to stay.

"Everything converges."

The captain had become a person essential to his goals.

“Hey, stray cat, why’re you staring so hard?”

Rem emerged, yawning loudly enough to bare his teeth.

It was meaningless provocation, and Jaxon ignored it as usual.

Rem’s gaze shifted to his captain.

“Well, look at that.”

It wasn’t often a barbarian showed surprise.

Ragna and Audin noticed as well.

They, too, had experienced the state Enkrid was in—immersed in his own world, his sword moving in rhythmic arcs.

And so they understood his current state.

He was lost in it, entrapped in his own world.

Was it dangerous?

No.

It was an opportunity—a rare chance for growth that might only come once or twice in a lifetime.

A chance to recognize one’s limits and push past them, advancing several steps in a single leap.

"Hey, cat, you need to secure the perimeter. You too, wanderer. Oi, bear?"

"I understand, brother. Sister Teresa and Sister Dunbakel will join us as well."

Audin’s quiet words set everyone into motion.

From that frosty morning, Enkrid’s companions drew a circle around their lodging.

Their task was simple:

“Don’t come closer. Don’t make a sound.”

Even when the lord of the manor came by.

"Word is you beat a priest black and blue. I came to discuss that."

“That man isn’t worthy of being called a priest, my lord. Regardless, now isn’t the time.”

It was incomprehensible to some.

A few soldiers frowned, muttering about the odd behavior.

But those who understood Enkrid’s state quietly stepped back.

Martai’s barracks were mostly composed of Easterners—tough, persistent, and loud.

"Make noise, and I’ll split your head."

“Silence is golden,” Audin chimed in smoothly. “The Lord once said to shout in battle and to speak softly at home. I ask you to seal your mouths for a while.”

“Quiet. Now.”

“Cross this line, and you’ll regret it.”

Each spoke in their own way.

Dunbakel watched Enkrid from a distance as she began her own training. Restlessness gnawed at her, driving her to move.

Teresa found herself once again fascinated by him.

"I am Teresa, the Wanderer."

She steadied her mind with her familiar mantra.

What she saw was a man swinging his sword alone, laughing like a madman.

"Does he enjoy this training as much as battle?"

Teresa, born and raised in a cult, had lived a narrow life. She didn’t know the world.

Even now, she wasn’t sure if her choices were right or wrong.

But one thing was certain:

"I want to fight him."

The man practicing in the small training yard in front of their lodging—she wanted to swing her sword at him.

Hard enough to crack his skull.

She wanted to charge at him with her shield, to punch and kick and clash against him.

Her desire to fight burned so fiercely that questions of right and wrong felt irrelevant.

“Calm yourself, sister,” Audin said softly, always nearby.

Teresa adjusted her mask and replied.

"I am Teresa, the Wanderer. I can endure."

Patience was a virtue.

She hadn’t been born with it, but she was determined to learn.

Only through patience could she fight him and revel in the moment of ecstasy.

In his own world, Enkrid stumbled, ran, crawled—it didn’t matter.

He thought about swordsmanship.

A ferryman appeared in a vision, speaking to him.

It was an illusion, a hallucination.

So he ignored it. What mattered wasn’t the ferryman or even the repetitiveness of the day.

Gracious, Heavy, Flexible, Agile, Fast.

Of the five styles, Enkrid had truly mastered only Gracious and Heavy.

Yet even with mastery, they didn’t feel right. Not because they were difficult, but because they didn’t fit. Why?

"They’re clothes that don’t suit me."

Swords built on talent, for talent, on soil enriched by talent.

Not the path of the untalented.

He hadn’t just realized this now.

His intuition and sixth sense led him forward.

Still, he walked, crawled, ran.

"Where is my path?"

With that question, he set his direction.

And so, Enkrid moved beyond the foundations of the Flexible Sword Technique, seeking a new path.

It was the process of creating a new swordsmanship.

Everything couldn’t happen at once. Emerging from his immersion, he knew what he had accomplished and what work remained.

Swordsmanship.

Becoming a knight or forging a new style of swordsmanship—both were insane pursuits. To others, they might sound like empty, foolish dreams.

But what did it matter?

When had others’ opinions ever been important?

As he left his trance, he noticed the sun was still high in the sky.

"That didn’t take long."

He raised his head to find a dwarf girl standing before him, her lips pouting.

"Hey, I’m a busy person too," she said.

The dwarf spoke.