A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Rem, Ragna, and Jaxon glanced at one another, then nodded. The agreement was settled.

Lua Gharne, squatting in front of the three, nodded and said,

“No objections.”

“As long as no one pulls some bullshit.”

Rem spoke while pressing her axe blade against a whetstone, sliding it with a sharp shhhk sound.

“Just throw already.”

Jaxon, holding a wooden piece in his left hand and a dagger in his right, added. Each time his dagger moved, it shaved the raw wood like butter with a crisp rasping sound.

“Sometimes when we got lost, we’d roll dice to decide.”

Ragna threw in a line. The blond genius was warming up without even sheathing his sword.

He seemed to be preparing for something deliberate.

“That’s why you get lost.”

Rem immediately reacted to Ragna’s ridiculous comment.

“Who does?”

Ragna asked calmly. Who got lost? He had no idea.

His tone and attitude, as if saying “What nonsense,” scraped at Rem’s nerves.

“You.” 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Thump.

The end of Rem’s axe handle—not the blade—pointed toward Ragna. As she spoke, she infused her words with spellwork. It was a technique that applied intangible pressure.

Ragna twisted his sword hand slightly so the blade angled toward Rem.

The spell, the pressure she exerted, was cleanly sliced by the will imbued in his sword’s edge.

It wasn’t something where one could say who won or lost—it was more of a hand game.

Of course, since it was these two, calling it a mere game wasn’t doing it justice. It was a high-level contest in disguise. But that only mattered to those capable of recognizing it.

Anyone who could recognize it would’ve just shaken their head at the childishness.

“If it’s envy of the guide’s talent, then training is the only answer.”

Ragna said.

“...Yeah, for a moment I thought, ‘Just kill you and move on, why go through all this?’”

Rem replied without skipping a breath.

“If killing were allowed, this would’ve been over a long time ago.”

Watching the two, Jaxon set down the wooden carving he had finished.

It depicted two figures with their necks half-cut, dangling loosely. One strangely resembled Rem. The other, oddly, looked like Ragna.

He could’ve made it big as a sculptor.

It wasn’t just talent—he’d trained in identifying weak points across species and practiced sensory control. Sculpting had been a hobby for years.

The atmosphere grew beyond tense, pressing down with a sharp, suffocating air.

Lua Gharne slammed her palm to the ground.

Thoom. The bumpy texture of the Frokk’s palm struck the dirt with a resounding thud.

“Focus.”

At her word, the pressure from the three lessened.

If they truly didn’t intend to kill each other, it was right to leave the outcome to this Frokk’s hand for now.

As the three pulled back, Lua Gharne gave a small nod and held her hand over a cup resting on the ground.

When it comes to contests that test luck beyond just skill, what’s the best method?

Rock-paper-scissors, as a traditional match, couldn’t settle superiority among these three.

They all broke their motions into fragments, constantly changing hands, and observing each other in real time, trying to shift hand shapes mid-gesture. It was chaos.

Eventually, Rem delivered a fatal blow with a hand shape that wasn’t rock, paper, or scissors.

She stuck out her thumb and index finger, bending the other three so the palm was fully exposed.

“This is a clan-exclusive style—a steel-forged scissors blending rock and paper.”

Sheer nonsense.

“My fist breaks whatever encases it.”

Ragna said.

“Isn’t it obvious that scissors can cut through rock?”

Jaxon chimed in.

There was no end to this.

So in the end, the three sought a witness. That was Lua Gharne.

They decided to settle it with dice, and now the Frokk was holding the cup that contained them.

Shlip!

But things never go according to plan.

The cup slipped from her slimy hand.

Only her hand had risen. It was because of the oil slick from watching the others radiate pressure.

“Ah, slippery.”

They’d picked the wrong witness. Or maybe the wrong game.

“You people are really something.”

Kraiss, who had approached in the meantime, took the cup in her place.

He handled it like someone who’d worked in gambling dens in his youth.

No one stopped him. No one even wanted to stop him.

Whoever it was—just shake the cup and roll the dice.

The three pairs of intense eyes said just that.

Kraiss gripped the cup and gave it a dramatic shake.

Clatter!

The dice spun in the wooden cup.

It was a six-sided die. Rem had picked the two highest numbers, Ragna the two middle ones, and Jaxon the remaining lowest two.

Clack—tock.

The cup settled.

“Why are we even doing this?”

Kraiss, recalling his old habit of building tension before revealing the result, lifted the cup slightly and paused to ask.

“Just open it, brother. Or you’ll die.”

Audin gave a kind warning.

Honestly, the three sharp gazes locked on his hand already felt more lethal than a blade to the neck.

Kraiss lifted the cup.

The die showed a five.

“I knew Mama Bear would help me out.”

Rem grinned. Jaxon shook his head. Ragna let out a low hm and glared at the die.

Should he just split it in half and call it off? That thought crossed his mind.

“That’s good enough, I think.”

From the edge of the training ground, Enkrid spoke.

Ragna gave up on the idea. If he smashed the die, they’d have to restart the order from the beginning—and he’d already made Enkrid wait too long.

They’d confirmed just yesterday that Enkrid had awakened as a knight.

“Give me one day to refine it.”

Instead of asking for a spar, Enkrid had simply shaken his head.

And that refining process—Audin assisted with it.

“Hit me.”

It was the start of training known as striking technique.

Thud.

A light punch.

Smack!

Later, punches laced with sincerity.

“If it’s too much, you’ll have to say so, brother.”

Audin said.

But from noon until just before evening that day, Enkrid did not stop getting hit.

Audin was soaked in sweat. Teresa, watching from the side, had dilated pupils.

‘Is it really okay to take punches like that?’

Forget being a knight—just enduring it was insane.

Audin’s stance, the rotational force flowing from ankle to knee to waist—it was flawless.

And his fists were as hard as steel.

After years of training, his hands were not just thick but solid.

It would be no exaggeration to call them maces.

So right now, what Enkrid was withstanding was the same as taking full-force mace blows from a powerful warrior.

And yet he didn’t groan once.

Not even once, despite taking dozens of hits.

“He’s ironclad.”

Lua Gharne, watching, gasped in awe.

Groan... groan... The deep rumbles in her cheeks were more excited than when a Frokk met rain after days away from the river.

“How is that even possible?”

Lua Gharne muttered. She wasn’t asking Enkrid. It was a question to herself.

She decided it was better to observe and understand Enkrid’s current state directly.

She even said, if she had any questions to ask later, she’d ask them then.

Until then, leave him alone—just let her watch.

Because right now, Enkrid was full of elements that stirred her curiosity.

Before, it had mostly been expectation.

Now, it had become something beyond that.

Even now, he kept shattering her expectations one by one.

Lua Gharne didn’t want to settle any of this with a few short answers.

As a Frokk, her way of satisfying curiosity had some unusual quirks—Enkrid just accepted that.

He had plenty to do himself.

This was all part of verifying things. He was trying everything.

He spent the entire day like that.

“Aren’t you tired?”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Teresa, who had been watching, looked like she was about to collapse, but Enkrid remained unfazed.

A modest amount of sweat.

Bruises all over his body.

At most, just bruises.

But the fists that caused them belonged to Audin—a body that seemed like it was created by a mistake of the gods.

“Not bad.”

Enkrid answered.

He looked deep in thought, but Teresa didn’t notice.

What was happening before her eyes was just too unbelievable.

“If you retract your Will and endure with just your body, you’ll get even tougher, brother.”

Audin, drenched in sweat, said this. Teresa had never seen him sweat so much.

That meant he had truly put everything into those punches.

What was more surprising was that Enkrid had sweated less.

Even after taking those hits.

From those fists.

No wonder she was amazed.

So after Enkrid spent the whole day like that, the next morning began with Rem, Jaxon, and Ragna fighting over who’d spar with him first.

They ended up in a game of rock-paper-scissors, which got overturned with ridiculous tricks—

and that brings us to now.

After the seasonal rains, it hadn’t rained again in a while, so the dry ground sent up dust with the smallest breeze.

Whish.

A few fallen blades of grass fluttered sideways in the wind.

Kraiss, crouched in a corner of the training field, had just rolled the dice and backed away, creating a natural space.

Enkrid stood, holding Acker.

“How deep are you going?”

Rem cut straight to the point, but Enkrid understood perfectly.

If sincerity was ten, how deep into it would he go?

“Five.”

Enkrid replied.

If either of them fought with full sincerity, one of them could die.

“I’m not good at controlling it. Be careful.”

Enkrid warned, and Rem laughed.

“Who are you warning? The directionless fool? The stray cat? Or the depressed baby bear trailing behind?”

Despite claiming to serve the mother bear, Rem had no trouble mocking another bear.

Ever since returning, she’d taken to calling Audin the baby of the group.

Well, mother bear and wild bear are two different things.

Rem specialized in making such distinctions.

It’s why she’d always been suited for shamanism.

If you just learn how to properly distinguish things,

you won’t do something stupid like accidentally attracting a wraith.

But if you don’t learn to distinguish properly,

you might end up accepting a demon into your body and become the kind of idiot that spits out ten thousand spirits.

“My weapon’s a passed-down heirloom. So no half-assed magic sword’s gonna cut it. This thing has a will of its own.”

An ego weapon—

A term for weapons with sentience.

They were rare, spoken of in legends and ancient texts,

but they did exist.

Rem’s heirloom axe had emotions.

Depending on the strength of those emotions, the power it emitted could fluctuate.

As with anything, strengths came with weaknesses.

As a magical medium, its inconsistency was a downside.

But when it did explode, it went completely wild.

At such moments, she was confident she could handle three knights at once.

Well, the kind of knights she knew, anyway.

Not all knights were the same.

There were people like Oara, and others like Azpen’s knights.

They had both reached the rank of knight, but realistically, there was a gap between them.

Still, every fight had to be tried to know for sure—so no absolute statements.

As she was mulling over all this and holding out her axe, Enkrid said something strange.

To Rem, it sounded like nonsense.

“You too?”

“What do you mean ‘me too’?”

“My sword talks to me, too.”

“It talks?”

If it goes beyond just showing emotion and actually speaks, then isn’t that what they call a magic sword? Or maybe a divine sword?

Whether it was a relief or not, it wasn’t quite either.

Enkrid had already had a conversation with his sword, Acker, half a day ago—and learned it was an exceptionally unusual weapon.

“Yeah, kinda chatty.”

—Hey! Chatty? You know how rare it is for a sword to be bound to a former knight’s lingering thoughts?!

Just then, Acker buzzed, sending words straight into Enkrid’s mind.

“We’ll talk later.”

Enkrid muttered. Ego sword or not, right now he was about to face off with Rem.

“That’s fair.”

Rem agreed with what Enkrid had said to his sword.

At the same time, she cast aside her own distractions.

When fighting, one should only fight. Worrying about how to run or what to do afterward would only keep you from showing even half your real skills.

Her opponent was the captain who had awakened Will through his awakening. No room for carelessness.

Show me.

How much have you changed?

There was no “begin” or signal.

Rem just swung her axe.

And Enkrid responded by swinging his sword.

Rem’s axe was slightly faster, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) but Enkrid was close behind. Even a careful observer would barely detect any difference in speed.

Clang!

Sparks flew where Acker and the axe met. A long gleam stretched through Enkrid’s blue eyes.

He stepped in with his foot, followed by an upward sword strike.

A combo that sliced between breaths.

At the same timing, Rem brought her axe down.

Clang!

A second clash.

Then Acker and the axe met again.

And again.

And again.

It was like a pair of lovers in a storm of temper—clashing and parting, over and over.

After dozens of such exchanges, Rem stepped back.

‘What is this?’

He was surprised again.

Enkrid’s shoulder moved slightly. Rem deliberately pressed in, matching weapons more.

There was intent behind it. Ragna or Jaxon probably would’ve done the same.

It was good that he had controlled his omnipotence.

But after that came the more important concept—understanding the limits of Will.

When does it tire out? One must see that threshold and learn to control around it.

Rem considered that the next step.

It was the same with shamanism.

But—

“Aren’t you tired?”

“You already worn out?”

Even though Enkrid’s body was screaming, the Will contained within him remained just as it had been from the start.

As though it were an endless spring—as if water continued to surge up from within.