Eternally Regressing Knight
Chapter 165 - 165 - Before the Surging Wave of Monsters
Chapter 165 - Before the Surging Wave of Monsters
Enkrid didn't bother counting the enemy numbers.
He simply swung his sword, again and again.
The monsters charged endlessly, and human screams burst out one after another.
No, at some point, the screams had disappeared, leaving only the stench of blood and the howls of beasts and monsters.
The battle had begun at dawn, and before he knew it, it was noon.
The sun had passed overhead.
Enkrid couldn't block every attack.
A hyena-like beast's head, detached from its body, was lodged in his left thigh.
His left arm hung limp.
His right hand was intact, but his right foot was not.
Smashed by a hammer, all his toes were broken.
His body wobbled left and right, and his vision blurred slightly.
Yet, the monsters kept coming.
"Grrrrrk!"
The pleas for help that had echoed around him—
The screams from somewhere in the distance—
They were gone.
Dragging his feet, Enkrid swung his sword.
His entire body screamed in agony from the reckless use of his
Heart of the Beast
From morning until past midday, for nearly half a day, he had fought alone, cutting down gnolls and hyena beasts.
The number surpassed a hundred.
If someone had seen it, if someone had known—
They would have been horrified.
But the only one left here was himself.
"Ah, Krais."
As he took a step back, his foot caught on something—a corpse.
Its belly had been torn open, spilling its guts, yet it could no longer groan even when stepped on.
A familiar face.
Krais, whose cheek bore the bite marks of a beast.
His face was ruined.
And to think, he always boasted that his face was his greatest asset.
At least Finn had gone out on patrol.
She had left to check the surrounding terrain—thankfully so.
If she had seen this, she would have run.
At least she wouldn't die.
The others... were they all dead?
Probably.
Today was another wall, a repetition of yesterday.
The certainty of it was almost a premonition.
He didn't need the boatman to tell him.
No, he could almost hear the boatman's mocking voice already.
"You think you can overcome the wall just by training with your sword? Try it. Drown in the monsters and beasts, suffocate in their midst. Then you'll realize your limits."
Exhaling, Enkrid gripped his sword once more.
'Limits? What nonsense.'
The gnolls, who had been relentlessly attacking, finally stopped.
"Guuuuuk!"
"Guuuuuuuk!"
"Guuuuuuuuuk!"
A rough, guttural howl echoed, and then the monster horde split apart.
From the gap, a single gnoll emerged.
Its posture was characteristic of its kind—head lowered, back hunched, spine protruding upwards.
It wasn't unusually large.
It didn't wield some extraordinary weapon.
At first glance, it seemed like any other gnoll.
The only difference was that its fur stood more on end than the others, and its snout was longer.
It held daggers in both hands, their blades gleaming under the sunlight, coated with some unknown substance.
With its appearance, the howling of the gnolls grew louder.
The air vibrated.
The resonating sound struck his eardrums, making them ache.
As Enkrid raised his sword before his eyes, he felt his arm trembling.
A consequence of overusing
Heart of the Beast
'Tch.'
It was frustrating, in a way.
What was all this?
He had woken up intending to train, only for a wave of monsters to crash down upon him.
And now, here he was.
The gnoll's gleaming yellow eyes locked onto Enkrid.
And Enkrid's lake-like blue eyes met its gaze.
Blue and yellow—each confirming the other's presence.
Monsters that formed colonies always had a leader.
One glance at the atmosphere was enough to tell.
This gnoll was their leader.
The leader sniffed the air, then bared its fangs in what seemed like a grin.
Was it a smile of confidence in victory?
Was this gnoll actually smiling at him?
Was that even possible?
Enkrid mulled over it for a moment before dismissing it entirely.
It wasn't a pleasant sight, but why should he care if the gnoll smiled or not?
What mattered was reflecting on what had happened in this desperate battle.
'I've delved deep into the
True Sword Form
Then again, he had only been focusing on mastering the basics.
Expecting it to yield immediate results was unrealistic.
Especially against monsters.
A relentless tidal wave of them, no less.
'They're not the kind to entertain a proper sword fight.'
Luagarne had once said that the
True Sword Form
was the worst technique to use against monsters.
Well, for a human to carve through a monstrous tide alone, they would have to be at least knight-level—no, at least squire.
So, had he gained nothing from this battle?
No.
He had.
Enkrid smiled.
As always, he had discovered something new, and that alone brought him joy.
Fighting against countless spears and blades, beasts and monsters, he had realized something.
'If I'm willing to risk death to push forward...'
The instinct for evasion—
Sense of Evasion
—was something that couldn't be ingrained through mere training.
But now, he had glimpsed it.
The countless wounds covering his body, the bites, cuts, slashes, and blunt trauma—
In every single moment, he had felt it.
Every time he was struck, he had wondered.
Why here?
Why couldn't he dodge?
Fighting, thinking, fighting, reflecting.
Perhaps the gnoll leader recognized his smile.
Or maybe it simply disliked the shift in atmosphere.
Its torn mouth shut tight, and it lunged.
With a sharp crack, its feet slammed against the ground as it charged.
It was terrifyingly fast.
It had no weight to its movement, yet its speed was reminiscent of the squire knight—no, perhaps even greater.
Without dynamic vision training, it would have been impossible to follow.
No, even now, it was dangerously close.
Enkrid barely managed to twist his body, half-collapsing as he dodged.
Gnolls were monsters.
They wielded weapons, but they weren't the type to use any sort of swordsmanship.
Their strikes were simple and direct.
If not for that, dodging would have been out of the question.
Enkrid gripped his sword with both hands and swung it upward.
His battered body couldn't deliver his best strike.
But he hadn't expected the gnoll to evade so easily either.
Swish—
The gnoll leader retreated as swiftly as it had charged.
It left afterimages in its wake.
Enkrid's blade sliced through empty air.
The yellow fur, mottled with black spots, flickered in and out of sight like a fading image.
Then, suddenly, it was right in front of him.
Enlarging in his vision—at point-blank range!
The gnoll that had dodged his sword lunged at him again.
This time, he had no way to avoid it.
With a sickening
thud,
a dagger plunged deep into his thigh.
It felt like being stabbed with a red-hot iron skewer.
The searing pain spread from his thigh, scorching through his entire body.
Enkrid tried to grab the gnoll the moment the dagger lodged into him.
But the creature slipped away again.
His desperate grasp only flailed through empty space.
The gnoll backed off, staring at him with a calculating gaze.
It began to circle around him in slow, deliberate steps.
Stalling for time?
At a moment like this?
Why?
What kind of monster is this?
The thought had barely formed when—
"You bastard."
Instead of a grin, Enkrid let out a breath of realization.
The dagger in his thigh gleamed with something slick.
A dull, burning pain—followed by a sudden wave of nausea.
It wasn't something he could just endure.
"Ugh—!"
His stomach twisted violently, forcing him to vomit a mix of blood and whatever he had eaten.
Poison.
The dagger had been coated with poison.
'Sneaky bastard.'
This gnoll knew its own strengths well.
Faster hands and feet than the others.
Faster reflexes.
It knew that even a grazing wound would be enough to secure victory.
It knew how to fight—and how to win.
"Kh...!"
That was the last thought Enkrid had before he collapsed.
Luagarne isn't coming back.
Maybe if he held out, she would come.
But that wasn't hope.
It wasn't dependence.
It was simply recognition of the facts.
Now that he knew Luagarne wasn't coming, that was enough.
That was the end of it.
What came next was a pain unlike anything he had ever known.
The gnoll with the dagger, as if playing a cruel game, jabbed Enkrid's body over and over.
Poisoned and helpless, Enkrid suffered for more than half an hour before he died.
Blackness.
Darkness.
And once again, the ferryman.
"A proper funeral rite? Do you think that'll help? You're nothing but a drifting wreck in a storm of monsters and beasts."
Ah.
He was reacting exactly as expected.
"I see."
Enkrid recalled Deutsch's reaction and decided to try the same trick on the ferryman.
"...You little bastard?"
The ferryman immediately caught on and snapped at him.
The moment his eyes opened at dawn, Enkrid began gathering his weapons.
The clinking of metal filled the air as he secured his second sword, various throwing weapons, and his armor.
The weight pressed down on his entire body.
It was reassuring.
All that noise was bound to wake the others.
That was intentional.
He had something to ask.
Luagarne, the Frog, was the first to speak.
"Fully armed at dawn?"
"Do you know anything about cults?"
At the unexpected question, a heavy silence fell over the cabin.
Luagarne was the cause of it.
For once, she wasn't her usual indifferent self.
"Where did you hear about them?"
From you, of course.
"During my time as a mercenary."
"Hmm."
"Shall we talk outside?"
Luagarne suppressed the ominous tension she had stirred.
Now wasn't the time to press the matter.
But still, the fact that Enkrid had brought it up...
That was worth hearing out.
Outside, Enkrid checked his gear once more.
No issues.
Then, he activated the
Isolation technique.
Moving while fully armed placed strain on his body.
The discomfort forced him to adjust his stance.
And in fixing his stance, he naturally recalled Audin's teachings.
"Training the body is meant to be uncomfortable."
...What a madman.
The key was to bear the discomfort while shifting the burden from the joints to the muscles.
How much time had he spent refining this?
How many times had he repeated it?
Enkrid quickly corrected his posture.
Today, his
Isolation technique
would be short and intense.
There wasn't much time.
Luagarne was baffled as she watched Enkrid, who immediately immersed himself in training, but she figured there was nothing to be done.
"That's just how he is."
"Why bring up heresy all of a sudden?" Luagarne asked.
Enkrid glanced at her casually.
He had encountered heretics before and even eradicated them.
They were often lurking in the dark corners of cities or in back alleys.
Of course, if the problem arose in a city, the Inquisitors from the temple would deal with it, and mercenaries wouldn't need to get involved.
In rural villages, however, when similar issues arose, the village chief or mayor would sometimes hire mercenaries.
Enkrid had once dealt with those who smoked herbs that destroyed their minds, people who were half-mad.
It was clear that the heretics Luagarne mentioned were not the same type.
So, Enkrid decided to ask, wanting to understand more.
"I saw them in a dream," Enkrid replied.
Enkrid spoke with ease.
He was good with words, which meant he could read people's intentions, understand their moods, and think quickly.
Enkrid recognized that Luagarne's gaze was not ordinary.
'She probably doesn't think I'm normal,' Enkrid thought.
He wondered if he could get away with this conversation.
If not, he would simply drop it.
His curiosity about cultists was only half the reason.
The other half was the feeling that something more might be tangled up in it.
It was clear that this wasn't about just a simple colony or a mob of monsters, it was something bigger, something odd.
The number of people involved wasn't normal.
"A dream?" Luagarne asked, intrigued.
One of the reasons was that Enkrid's head didn't seem quite right.
'It's possible,' Luagarne thought, soon accepting it.
This man, despite everything going on, was still moving, fully armed.
How was that normal?
It certainly made him seem like the leader of a crazy squad.
"Heresy is truly dangerous and should be approached with great caution. Even speaking its name carelessly could bring danger," Luagarne said.
"Yes, you're right," Enkrid replied, not feeling the need to elaborate further.
Luagarne continued speaking, adding a few more details.
"Cults have spread across the continent, but the most dangerous are those who believe in the Demon's Sacred Grounds. They are followers of the Demonic Sacred Ground Cult, also known as the Rebirth Sect, worshipping the Six Devils."
That was enough.
It wasn't detailed, but there was no need to know more.
Luagarne kept it vague.
Enkrid felt he had heard enough.
Whether it was the Demonic Sacred Ground Sect, the Rebirth Sect, or those worshipping the Six Devils, something about it seemed to be connected with Luagarne.
'Has she gotten involved with them?'
Enkrid couldn't ask her directly, so he would have to figure it out slowly.
Enkrid resumed his training.
Luagarne watched, then asked with a gurgling sound as bubbles formed, "Aren't you hot?"
Sweat dripped down from Enkrid's forehead.
It was hot.
Training while fully armored wasn't exactly comfortable.
"It's good for muscle training, the weight of the armor adds resistance," Enkrid said, brushing it off with a quick excuse, giving a plausible reason.
That was his quick thinking in action.
Luagarne nodded, accepting the explanation.
Time passed again.
Enkrid looked around to see if he could get Esther or Krais to evacuate.
The thick barricades weren't something that could be easily passed, and there were two gates—one at the front, the other connected to a rocky hill at the back.
Sending them back?
But the back gate was firmly sealed as well.
It was never opened in normal times, and Krais had said they didn't want to show anyone the quarry area.
'What are they hiding?' Enkrid didn't know, and it didn't matter.
He didn't push himself too hard.
He eased up slightly.
Sweat still fell to the ground.
The heat was unbearable.
Even in the morning, wearing this much armor was enough to make anyone sweat, and swinging a sword on top of that?
He waited for the monsters.
The boatman's question seemed to echo.
"What can a single human do in front of a wave of monsters?"
No, it wasn't the boatman's question.
It was a question Enkrid asked himself.
What could a human, standing alone, do?
There were plenty of things.
The realizations, the things he'd relearned.
In the midst of the monster tide, he could train his senses.
Reflex training, judgment training based on incoming information, muscle contraction training, and crisis management skills gained by maneuvering the body amidst numerous blades.
All of it was training.
He had learned these lessons when facing the wizard Retsha, the werewolf colony, and the ambush units of Aspen.
As he repeated today, heading toward tomorrow, he would use everything he had.
He wouldn't waste today.
He would make full use of it.
He had vowed to do so, and so he would.
Enkrid sharpened his mind like a blade.
He held his sword out in front of him.
This was how he greeted a new day.
Enkrid turned his back on the rising sun.
Boom!
A loud noise followed by the shout of a horn broke through the air.

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