Eternally Regressing Knight
Chapter 622: Chapter 622 - Words Spoken Through the Sword
"That’s really fascinating," Rem remarked as he retrieved his axe.
"What is?"
Enkrid twisted his ankle experimentally.
It had been jarred during their sparring match but was neither broken nor particularly painful.
Not bad, he thought.
Earlier, during a series of reckless movements, his ankle had bent at an unnatural angle.
A regular person would have been crippled without immediate treatment.
Not Enkrid.
Years of training with Audin to build flexibility had paid off.
His knightly technique,
Endure
, had fortified his skin and muscles like armor.
Additionally, he had mastered a skill Audin called
Grasping Will
"It’s about channeling your will to protect your joints during sudden impacts or extreme movements," Audin had explained.
"Paladins use divine power to shield themselves from injury and heal simultaneously. With
Will
, you can only hold yourself together."
The training to learn it?
Grueling.
Enkrid remembered thinking he’d suffered enough to write a book about it.
"You’re going to break my bones now, right?" Enkrid had asked, eyeing Audin warily as the latter grabbed his forearm and raised a chopping hand.
"Of course. Brace yourself," Audin replied nonchalantly.
Watching from the side, Rem muttered, "The bear’s finally gone mad."
"If they break, Seiki can practice her divine healing. It’s a teaching opportunity," Audin added, ignoring the protests.
Even Ragna chimed in with, "If you’re bored, go take a nap."
Meanwhile, Luagarne remarked, "Practical, if nothing else," with a Frog’s detached gaze.
Ropord and Fel?
They turned pale.
"Do we really need to go this far?" Fel had whispered nervously.
In the end, even Fel and Ropord underwent similar training.
Through repeated strikes and joint-twisting trials, Enkrid eventually mastered
Grasping Will
Reflecting on the experience sometimes made him wonder if his memoirs could stretch to ten thousand words or more.
Now, using everything he’d gained, Enkrid sparred with Rem, pouring his insights into every move.
"You’re really fascinating," Rem repeated, scratching his head with the axe handle.
"What makes you say that?" Enkrid asked, intrigued.
"Sometimes, you seem completely talentless—like a polite ghoul. Then, other times, you look like a genius," Rem said.
"Not talent. Experience," Enkrid corrected.
"I’ve accumulated fragments of knowledge, condensed them, and used them to chart my path."
"Isn’t that what talent is?"
"Just gain more experience."
"What are you saying? Die and come back to try again?"
"How did you know?" Enkrid smirked.
"Forget it," Rem muttered, unaware how close he was to the truth.
Enkrid didn’t try to convince him.
He simply reviewed what he had learned during the match, reorganizing his insights.
Lately, it had become a daily routine, a practice that extended even into his meditation sessions.
One key realization stood out:
"There is no such thing as a single point of focus."
In extreme situations, heightened concentration could make time feel slower—an acceleration of thought.
Enkrid noticed that his comrades—Ragna, Rem, Audin, and Jaxen—also instinctively demonstrated similar abilities, even without formal training in techniques like
Single Point Focus
Why?
When asked, their answers were infuriatingly simple:
"Because we can."
Ignoring their smug responses, Enkrid focused on refining his own understanding.
"Why do techniques even need names?"
He realized that naming techniques helped clarify and internalize them.
But beyond that?
Unnecessary.
Instead, he sought a natural flow:
"Let it emerge as naturally as breathing."
Compressing and gathering his
Will
required deliberate effort, but beyond that, he prioritized repetition until his body reacted instinctively.
This insight felt foundational—a rediscovery of the basics.
Once grasped intellectually, it became a physical response, then an intuitive understanding embedded deep within his core.
"How many times must I remind you to act naturally, like breathing?"
Audin’s words rang clear, a truth Enkrid had finally embraced.
It was now clear why Rem had often expressed such irritation with these words.
It was easy to say, after all.
However, the reality was that saying something was easy didn’t mean it would be simple to carry it out with the body or understand it in the heart.
Especially for someone who hadn’t been blessed with natural talent, the phrase "as natural as breathing" felt like an incredibly difficult task.
The reason he had hit a wall while creating the new swordsmanship called "Wave Block" was due to this very issue.
The wave was water.
In other words, he had to block a formless, incoming attack perfectly with his sword, which meant implementing a barrier with a sword to repel such strikes.
The meaning behind the swordsmanship was clear.
So how would it be executed?
A great swordsmanship should have meaning, a way of execution, and a training method.
Meaning, execution, and training methods.
These were the three essentials for mastering a sword.
Until now, the only thing Enkrid had had in his Wave Block swordsmanship was the meaning.
’A sword that even blocks waves.’
Now, he had reached the point where he could think about execution, and naturally, that led to thoughts about training methods.
Although it wasn’t perfectly settled, it felt like a foggy vision had cleared in an instant.
That was the outcome of his sparring with Rem today.
Additionally, as he had experienced several times before, he now felt the process of realization and learning, where his accumulated experiences naturally manifested.
Could all this be explained with words?
’It’s difficult. That’s why it’s hard to convey what’s been realized with words.’
Yet, despite this, Enkrid felt a vague conviction that one day, he would be able to establish his path in some form.
Though he didn’t know the exact way, he had a strong sense that it would come to him.
This led to the inevitable thought.
’That’s why Shinar spoke with a sword.’
It was difficult to convey things with words.
That was when Enkrid understood that the unique swordsmanship of the fairy folk had been Shinar’s way of saying goodbye.
He also realized the hidden meaning behind the letter she had left, saying she would wait for him to come and propose.
’It’s a message to not search for her.’
Why had she mentioned a proposal?
She had always joked about marriage proposals, and he always rejected them, so her use of the word "proposal" was actually a signal for him not to seek her out.
Of course, Enkrid couldn’t perfectly understand Shinar’s inner thoughts.
He could only guess.
It was a plausible deduction, and Shinar had indeed left the letter with such a hidden meaning.
Although winter was in full swing, warmth was rising inside the border guard headquarters.
Thanks to the efforts of Rem’s unit and the regular army, most of the accidents caused by the heretics had been dealt with.
This was also the result of Krais listening to Abnaier’s advice and beginning to reorganize the troops.
Reorganization meant restructuring the military’s formation.
It was something they had done before, but this time it was done with the same meticulous detail as if drawing the eyes in a detailed portrait.
Krais started with Enkrid’s unit, creating what came to be known as the "Madmen Guard."
The commander of this unit was a junior knight from the order, Fel.
"Why should I take that position?"
"I thought you were the most talented person. Am I wrong?"
Enkrid had heard a rough exchange like this between Fel and Krais.
The actual persuasion must have involved a lot more conversation and different proposals, but this was the gist.
Fel had ended up becoming the commander of the Madmen Guard.
"Anyone less talented than me should get out of here."
Fel was far more intense in disciplining his troops than Enkrid.
Luagarne had assisted him with that.
In the field of personal tactics, especially using the environment, there were few warriors as capable as her.
This was an area that required both experience and study, regardless of whether they were knights or not.
Well, everyone learned the necessary skills from Luagarne intuitively.
Meanwhile, Rem’s assault unit, known as Rem’s Unit, had been officially declared to stay in the same form as before, which led to Krais receiving a threatening letter.
The letter demanded the disbandment of Rem’s Unit immediately.
Krais, in an attempt to secure his own safety, rushed to Rem with the letter.
Rem immediately gathered all his soldiers.
"Ho-ho, I’m not looking for the one who wrote this letter. You’re one team. If one of you messes up, you all fall together."
"Isn’t that unreasonable?"
This soldier, who had learned his craft purely through determination, was a member of a unit that had once been famous in his homeland and was now protesting.
He had learned well here but didn’t understand why he was being treated this way for something he hadn’t even sent or known about.
"That’s my standard. If you don’t like it, go ahead and catch up to me and become the commander yourself."
Ah, Rem.
Rem didn’t try to convince his soldiers with words.
He simply didn’t feel the need to.
He ruled with power.
"You crazy bastard!"
Even though his soldiers would sometimes shout insults like this, Rem let it go.
Swearing during training was an everyday occurrence.
For ten days, Rem challenged his soldiers to spar with him.
These weren’t gentle sparring sessions.
"Do you think I won’t kill you in the end? You’re not like the captain. A few dead will not matter to me."
Sorcery was specialized in manipulating intangible forces.
The fear Rem instilled in his soldiers seeped into their bones.
The only way to survive was to fight desperately with everything they had.
And so, they did, and they survived.
Of course, Rem didn’t hold back.
However, the soldiers came to experience what it truly meant to be on the edge of life and death.
Had they been careless, they could have died.
At this point, Rem had started to believe in the theory that even talentless people could be awakened by being pushed to the brink of death.
It wasn’t an entirely wrong theory.
The effect was certainly there.
But in reality, those who survived such intense training naturally became top-tier fighters.
Later, some soldiers from Rem’s unit would glare at Krais or get angry with him, but still...
"Rem!"
Krais, with a single word, suppressed them all.
Given the situation, it seemed as if the soldiers had specifically set their sights on Krais.
They were loud-mouthed individuals, after all.
But in the end, discipline had been instilled properly.
There was no room for rebellion, and everyone followed orders diligently.
"A unit with broken discipline is like a rotten apple. A rotten apple will spoil the ones around it."
Abnaier’s help had been significant in this process.
When there had been a commotion in Rem’s unit, Krais had handled it.
They had even entrusted an unit to Ragna, there was no expectation that the lazy commander would live up to the role of a leader.
But there was still a way to manage things.

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