Eternally Regressing Knight Chapter 495

495
“Let’s float the Grime.”

It had been two weeks since Encred disappeared, and Rem said:

As soon as Rem spoke, he was ready to persuade.

Grimeran is the name of a hero, but it is also a word referring to a spell called the Black Bird of Wishes.

There was also a legend that after the hero died, he was reincarnated as a black bird and protected the West.

Anyway, Rem decided that he had to take a risk and opened his mouth.

What is a wish? It is something you think about and wish for earnestly.

Would that desperation work miracles? It didn’t.

Launching the Bird of Wish won’t allow you to find Encrid right away, but it will tell you if the target you’re looking for is alive and give you directions to where they are.

The problem was that using this spell required consuming food.

Both the Grimeran hero and the bird are said to be big eaters.

It is said that food must be offered as a sacrifice.

‘If I write this now, I’ll have a really hard time.’

If you somehow hold on, you might be able to hold on again. Even though you’re headed for a difficult and poor life.

But what needs to be done must be done. He was said to be a hero who saved the West, so he should be treated accordingly.

That’s the western way.

The chieftain nodded without hesitation in front of Rem, who was preparing to say this and that.

“Now, listen to me. This is… … .”

Rem stopped talking reflexively and held his tongue.

Why are you nodding right away?

“Okay. Let’s float it.”

Rem stopped talking.

“Let’s call the sorcerer.”

Ayul moved after the chieftain’s words. Juol, who was in the corner of the tent, followed him.

Geomna-rae and Hira nodded vigorously.

“The eldest sorcerer is sick, so I will stand in the center.”

Hira offered to personally preside over the ritual.

A strong determination bloomed in her eyes, even as she pushed the tobacco stick aside.

Although Rem’s talent for magic was outstanding, it was only limited to fighting.

So, Rem’s magical nature was too rough to participate in such a ritual.

To put it simply, it was like asking for a favor in a confrontational tone.

That was something Rem couldn’t control.

So another sorcerer was needed, and Hira stepped up to do it.

Even though he would be bedridden for at least two weeks if he performed this ritual, he showed no sign of hesitation.

“But if I call Grime now, what will happen later?”

Rem spoke as if he was worried about what would happen next after he brought it up.

“You can think about it later. God will help you.”

The chieftain answered. His eyes showed an unwavering conviction.

But if you’re a chief, shouldn’t you think about the entire tribe?

Isn’t this author, the descendant of the divine bear, putting his entire tribe at risk to save a stranger?

Even though they are a loyal Western people, this might be a bit excessive.

He also intended to persuade them, but he felt strangely uneasy.

‘Didn’t we try to launch Grime once in the past and everyone was against it?’

Even during the great tribal war.

Even when abnormal weather occurred throughout the West.

Wasn’t it the bird of wishes that was not used until the last moment?

Has any groundbreaking way to reduce the sacrifices been developed while you were away?

No it wasn’t.

A large bonfire is lit. Offerings are piled on top. Starting with lucky fish, precious food items disappear as sacrificial offerings.

After gathering food, all the shamans knelt down and began the ritual.

“It’s just like that.”

Rem said.

“what?”

The chief asked from the side. He had a calm expression on his face, as if he was doing what he had to do.

“I’m asking because I wonder if it’s okay to call the bird of wishes like this.”

The chieftain bowed his head for a moment, watching smoke begin to rise from the stacked firewood.

It was a process that also contained one’s own wishes.

The chieftain raised his head and looked back at Rem.

“There is no other way, so we must do whatever we can.”

Life for life.

It’s a common saying in the West.

Grace had to be repaid with grace.

The chief did so. All the other westerners did so.

In any case, it was something that Rem herself wanted.

In the past, these were authors who would say no to any excuse, but this time, seeing someone more proactive than them, it still felt strange.

That’s how impressive Encred seemed to them.

The Westerners did not just talk about him as an honorable warrior or a savior, but they risked their entire tribe to find him.

Smoke rose in clumps, flames rose into the sky, and soot like flames began to clump together instead of dispersing, covering the sky.

No one was allowed to come near the campfire.

If you go into the smoke, you die. Suddenly, your eyes would roll over, you would have a seizure, or you would collapse.

Then it was a waste.

For that reason, no one went inside.

Above the heads of the tribesmen who had retreated like that.

The soot gathered and the fifty-year-old sorcerer called out to the bird of desire.

Gooooooooo.

Black smoke gathered into wings and a beak. It was a spectacular sight. Black soot gathered into the sky and appeared as a bird.

It looked like a cloud covering the sky, but its shape was clearly that of a bird with a beak and wings.

The bird flitted in the sky for a moment and then disappeared, and that was enough.

“I’m alive!”

Hira shouted. That was the end of the first day.

The bird of wishes flew for three days, and the tribe burned all their food supplies.

“Over there!”

Hira pointed to one side even as he fainted.

Rem turned her head in the direction the finger was pointing.

It wasn’t the River of Sand from which there was no return, but a place slightly further east.

‘What are some ways to survive in the middle of the desert?’

Rem’s head quickly came up with several alternatives.

He knows the desert too. He doesn’t know how to freely come and go, but he knows a few ways to get across the river of sand and a few back roads.

Some of the minority tribes lived mainly in the desert.

But coming out alive in the middle of the desert was a different story.

For the average person, eight or nine out of ten times, you would have to leave it to luck.

What if you find yourself in that situation?

‘What do you know?’

I’ll just move to one side and pierce through it straight away.

Are you tired? Just break through before you get tired.

So what did the captain do?

I wouldn’t have just sat there and waited to die.

I must have walked without even stopping.

If you deviate even a little bit from the direction, you will end up going deeper into the desert.

If you got out, it would be in the direction Hira was pointing.

‘Is the goddess of luck your ex-wife?’

This is something that can only be possible if you are very lucky or if you stick with it.

Looking at the direction, it seemed like we had already left the center of the desert.

Rem was thinking of crossing the desert herself if the bird of wishes would show her the way.

“One of the legends I was destined to achieve has disappeared.”

Let’s talk about it together, Ayul frowned from the side.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing. I have to go pick you up.”

Rem walked in the direction the bird of desire had shown her. Even if she had held on and escaped, she would have dried up and died.

Rem was followed by over a hundred Westerners.

“There are too many.”

Although Rem scolded him.

“We are worried too.”

“As your future wife, I can’t miss out.”

“If you are in magical danger, I can help you.”

“I just want to follow.”

Ziva’s mother, Ziva, an unknown sorcerer, and even a warrior who just fights.

They were all just like that.

“It’s the devil.”

Beside him, Luagarne muttered.

Encred was once called the Demon Squad Leader.

Everyone was so taken in by Encred.

This place was also full of possessed people.

In a way, it was a natural thing.

It was a Western custom to remember and honor those who fought for them.

However, the person who saved you from danger and crisis is said to be in danger.

How can you just look at this?

“I don’t know. Let’s go together.”

Rem spoke and took the lead.

* * *

“It was isolation.”

The boatman said.

Encred blinked. He knew intuitively that it was a dream, but the environment was a little different.

Is this a feeling that reflects the captain’s desire to harass until the end?

The surrounding area was not filled with black river water, but with sand.

It was a river of sand that I saw as I was dying. There was sand everywhere, and a boat rocked on top of it, scattering the sand.

Should I be so distressed that I start a fight just by looking at sand?

Encrid was indifferent.

A purple lamp shone on the sand, and the boatman holding it spoke again.

“You walk really well.”

The captain is a bit serious today.

Is it because I’ve lived a long time that my ego has become fragmented? Or is it just because I have a unique personality?

Bussssss.

The boat rocked as the sand scattered.

Only then did Encred realize that he was sitting on a stone chair with a backrest.

The boatman was sitting like that too.

The same chair and stone table were in the middle, facing each other.

Cracked gray skin and purple eyes stared straight at Encrid.

Did you ask if I walk well? Then I walk well. What else can I not walk?

“Even though there is nothing to protect.”

“There was.”

Encred cut off the boatman.

Purple eyes stared at him intently.

The boatman’s gaze felt deeper and more intense, but I didn’t avoid it.

In the past, I felt a sense of dizziness when I looked at the boatman, but now I felt a bit indifferent.

Is this something you get used to?

I didn’t know that might be the case.

“I protected myself by not stopping.”

It was exactly as I said. I didn’t really give a reason for walking, but as I walked, that thought occurred to me.

The idea that isolation, loneliness, those things aren’t important.

So what’s the point of this step?

Wouldn’t it be more comfortable than it is now if we just held on for a while?

But why am I walking now?

Why are you walking?

To live uncomfortably rather than die comfortably.

I also got an answer of my own.

It wasn’t a grand thought. It was just a regular thought.

It wasn’t the source of will or anything like that.

If you were going to give a rough answer, it would have been fine to just say that you walked.

Those steps, those steps taken to get out of the sand, were all for my own protection.

Encred spoke, and the boatman muttered after a moment of silence.

“… … It is also a way to protect yourself.”

To Encred, those words seemed to come from very far away.

So the boatman’s words grew distant, the sand turned into black river water, and the boat dispersed like smoke.

Encred felt a sense of floating. He was floating and rising, and as he rose upward, he saw light.

The dripping water droplets seeped through the light.

The pain started as if someone had scraped my neck with a plow.

It was so dazzling that I closed my eyes and woke up the moment I opened them.

“Are you awake?”

A face appeared before his eyes, and Encrid felt a burning pain in his throat. Still, he had to say what he had to say.

“Still dreaming?”

His voice was as scratchy as the pain in his throat.

Is this still part of the boatman’s trick?

As if the surroundings had changed into a river of sand? I thought I had woken up from a dream, but I hadn’t?

The sense of reality hasn’t sunk in yet.

“I was surprised too, Captain.”

The opponent spoke. The name of the hunter under his command came to Encred’s mind.

Enri, a plains hunter and a friend who returned from military service to start a family with a florist widow.

It was a name that stayed in my mind because some memories were so vivid that they were unforgettable.

“Why are you here?”

The words became short. Saying a few words was harder than swinging a sword for three days and nights.

The hot desert heat and the cold of the night constantly ate away at my stamina, and the sweat I shed as a result easily caused me to become dehydrated.

Even as a knight, it was suicidal to enter the Western Desert unprepared.

If he were a real knight, he would have gotten out of it somehow.

According to Enri’s common sense, the desert was the place where even knights died.

But then, a man emerged from the desert half-dead, and that man was Encred.

“If I were to explain why I am here, it would take two books.”

Encrid nodded and immediately fainted.

Enri looked at the captain and tidied up the surroundings while getting some water.

This was a village that was founded on an oasis adjacent to the desert.

Since even in the West, monsters and beasts were rare, the walls were not very high.

A place where criminals, hunters, etc. gather.

There was only one reason Enri was here. It was Crona.

After being dumped by the florist’s widow, Enri briefly served as a bodyguard for the upper class.

Because he was good at archery, had a cautious personality, and was trustworthy, he was well-regarded as a warrior guarding the upper class.

As time went by, Enri also began to have an eye for trade routes.

In the meantime, I also heard a story about the West.

They say that if you just get a few jewels, your fortune will turn around.

Does that make sense?

From the beginning, the more a story is told, the more it tends to be exaggerated.

After asking around like that, it seemed like it wouldn’t be enough to spread one’s fortune, but if one hunted and obtained precious gems and sold things like western specialties, it would be a good start for a business.

So, I invested all the Krona I had saved up until then and bought a Velopter.

I had some confidence in myself.

While the placenta was waiting for fortune, Enri studied the habits of animals.

That wasn’t the end of it.

It seemed like if I did well somehow, a new life could begin here.

Having a trading company was Enri’s dream after being dumped by her widow.

It was while I was walking along the edge of the desert that I discovered Encrid.

It was a place where skeleton monsters frequently appeared.

Adventurers, explorers, and treasure hunters who entered the desert without knowing anything ended up encountering skeletal monsters.

In the meantime, Encred popped out.

At first I thought it was a monster.

Her sunken eyes and haggard appearance made her look like a dead mummy. But her eyes were shining. Blue and clear.

“What is this?”

Although Enri was also embarrassed, he gave up the jewel-eared fox without hesitation and saved Encred.

The moment I saw those eyes, I recognized him at a glance. The equipment was different and the atmosphere was different, but I recognized him right away.

As we live, there are people and events that we never forget after experiencing them only once.

Why did you save me? Before I could even think about it, my body moved and I did it.

Because at one point, he owed his life to this man.

So I had no regrets.

Encrid opened his eyes again two days later.

At that time, Rem and other Westerners entered the small oasis village.

“I thought you were dead.”

Encred, now feeling better, answered.

“I almost died.”

In reality, he had fallen countless times, but without knowing it, he seemed like a person who had been blessed with good luck itself.

“Oh, honorary pilot.”

That was why the chief gave him such a strange nickname.

Encrid passed it by without a second thought.

I just walked alone and pondered what I realized.

So, he was isolated, and the boatman told him to walk alone, but even in that situation, he seemed to be practicing something out of habit.

When I woke up and came to my senses, it was like that.

It is said that with the knight’s blow, a certain enlightenment came.

What path should I take to become a knight?

The path was visible.

So, more clearly than ever before.

It was thanks to wandering in the desert. This act itself was like watering the fruit of experience.