Eternally Regressing Knight Chapter 733

733. You can’t collect today the water you spilled yesterday.

After years of training and becoming accustomed to it, you can sense its presence while you sleep, so there is no danger.
Also, you won’t get depressed because you’re left alone. You won’t have time to escape loneliness.

‘knife.’

On the contrary, since it is quiet and peaceful, it would be a good time to organize swordsmanship and other things.
Haven’t you learned a lot during that time?
Recently, everything from the Imperial swordsmanship to the presence of the Imperial knight Balmung was a lesson.

‘Knight of the Empire.’

Encred had been observing Balmung for a while.
He saw the developed muscle forms with his eyes and heard the sounds of breathing and movement with his ears.
Naturally, he tried to understand it by using his other five senses.
What kind of experience did he have?
What kind of attack would he use in a real fight? If
Tempest Zawn was a single-edged sword, and Alexandra was like a sharp thorn.

‘Balmung looks like a man with a sword, a spear, and a club all mixed together.’

The image that comes to mind is spearheads, axes, swords, and spiked clubs jutting out from between shields. A single eyeball seems to be vaguely visible in the smudged shadows between the shields.

‘He is good at hiding himself and thrusting his blade.’

On the surface, he only has a club, but he probably has many hidden weapons.
Is he sinister? Rather than being sinister, it should be seen as something similar to what he said when he introduced himself.

‘No means necessary to win.’

Should I fight with a tactical sword? With just that?
There’s no chance of winning if you limit yourself to fighting.
People use swordsmanship. It’s foolish to be limited to one technique. That means you shouldn’t be picky when fighting.
It’s like mixing the Sword of Chance with Flash and cutting down a Gelt or something.
You’ll have to use everything you have to fight him. Still, it won’t be easy to predict victory or defeat.
Encred found a suitable cave and settled down. He didn’t light a fire, but he found some fragrant fruit nearby, crushed it, and sprinkled it on his body.
This was a common method for guides or mercenaries who travel alone.
This way, he could get rid of his body odor, so it was good for avoiding beasts or monsters with a developed sense of smell. It would be even better if there were traces of animal excrement nearby.
If there were beasts or monsters running rampant nearby, it would be difficult for them to move around, so if you saw excrement, it was a relatively safe area.
Since the Fen-Hanil Mountains were overflowing with beasts and monsters, the division of territory would actually be clear.
Otherwise, there would be no beasts left and only monsters would be swarming, so that would be a demonic realm.
The center of Pen-Hanil was similar to a demonic realm, but most of it wasn’t.
Monsters, demons, and beasts coexisted.
Therefore, the territory would be clear.
Even so, if you were unlucky, you would become a meal for the monsters, but that wouldn’t happen to Encred.
Only unlucky monsters and demons would die.
There was no urgent matter, so there was no reason to run to the border guard by the shortest route. It wasn’t like he was deliberately delaying, but Encred did whatever he felt like.
Since he thought he still had time, he thought about this and that in the cave and reflected on what he had learned and practiced.
He drew the air with his palm and studied postures by twisting his body here and there.
Reflecting on the various skills that Balmung had taught him was also a study. The more experience he accumulated, the stronger he became.

‘Of course, you have to be careful not to develop bad habits.’

When you become a knight, you have a great ability to control your body, so it is unlikely that you will develop strange habits.
Even so, when you feel sleepy, you will sleep little by little. I don’t feel particularly tired. Although, the aftereffects will build up to some extent.

‘It’s not too much of a stretch to say we fight right now.’

That was the night of the day I parted ways with Balmung. It was a day when two moons rose brightly, and it was also a day when the starlight twinkled as if it was trying not to be overshadowed by the moon.
It was the moment when I closed my eyes to sleep a little longer, using the sounds of crying all night, the sounds of insects in the grass, the sounds of rustling leaves, and the common noises of summer nights as my lullaby. Encred realized that he was standing on the side of the boat. It was the boatman’s invitation.
The boatman holding a purple lamp was looking at me from the black river.
Was it the same as any other day? There were a few things different.
His face looked clearer than before.
His skin was cracked like a gray wasteland, and his face seemed a little longer than before.
His dark eyes were invisible, and the inside of his mouth was the same.
His tongue was purple, and the inside of his mouth was pitch-black darkness like an abyss.
If you accidentally entered a deep pond, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the top and the bottom, and you could drown. That’s what the boatman’s mouth looked like.
It was a sight that stimulated the natural fear of humans.
It wasn’t that way originally, but it was even worse today.
The boatman said in a kind and gentle tone.

“Come in.”

Kindness is the best. Encred’s sharp intuition read that. But she couldn’t figure out why.
Before, hadn’t she been telling him to save Anne and protect this lucky day?
She had never felt any favor, but today was different than usual.

‘What’s different?’

A black shadow stretched out behind the boatman. The shadow, which was usually unnoticeable, was large and wide.
What if we named that shadow ‘malice’?
It seemed to fit perfectly.
Yes, today’s boatman was full of malice. The corners of his mouth went up, revealing pitch-black darkness instead of his gums. The black river water was unusually calm. Even
the river water seemed to be frightened by the malice the boatman showed and was watching.

“I think you are being too generous.”
“If I don’t welcome you, who will I welcome? There is only one thing to be happy about in this darkness of the abyss.”

It was something said with a smiling face.

“What is that joy?”
“It is the repetition of today’s delight, joy, pleasure, rapture, joy, and rapture.”

Encred did not sense any meanness in the boatman’s words. Instead, he saw persistence.
Where did that persistence come from?
It was desire and lust. The boatman was not human, but his way of thinking was not much different.

‘If you want to know someone, you have to know what they want.’

I look back on what I learned from seeing Hescal.
Today’s captain is full of malice. The reason why that malice was revealed is.

‘I’m revealing my true feelings.’

He is an honest and upright boatman. He has openly revealed his secret feelings. These are words that he has thrown out with such a pure heart.
To repeat today, which is full of pleasure.
That is what the boatman wants.

“What would have happened if I hadn’t protected Anne?”

The corners of his mouth, full of malice, turned up. Dust fell from the cracked gray wasteland.

“You must have repeated today, with nothing but pain and suffering while sick. That’s not bad. Yes, it’s not bad, but is that the ending you wanted?”

The boatman asked again. Encred looked at him without answering.

“That day will come. There will come a time when you cannot turn back even if you took half a wrong step at a crossroads.”

The boatman is not a prophet. I already knew that. But it seemed as if whatever the boatman was saying would come true.

“Look.”

The captain showed me the things that never happened, the day that I never greeted.
There was himself there, dying of illness.

“If you said you enjoyed any fight, you should have.”

Ragnar’s eyes sink as he sees himself dying. Anne’s body lies next to him.
The surroundings are blurry, but one thing is certain. Inside, he is repeating today with pain as his friend.
Since there is no one to fix him, he can only think about eternal death.
The boatman’s voice sounded like a finger poking at a gap.

“I helped you.”

The fingers he spat out soon became dozens of knives and reached Encred’s heart.
The boatman intervened at every moment of choice.
He warned Anne before the monsters targeted her, and he would spit out helpful sounds before facing the battlefield.
Was this true? That was not important.
The boatman stimulated the fear that people would naturally have.

If you make even the slightest mistake, you will be trapped in this terrible today.
The time that has passed cannot be returned.
The water that was spilled yesterday cannot be collected today.

Encred lowered his gaze and remained silent.
To the boatman, it was obvious.
When someone faces the fear he had been deliberately ignoring, his thoughts stop. I can just put what I want in between.

“Sit down at the table. I’ll make you win.”
“Hold a woman. Immerse yourself in a pleasure that is unparalleled in the world.”
“Take the medicine. You’ll feel pleasure rushing through your body.”
“You like swords? Swing them. You want to cut anything? Do it. Do whatever you want. I’ll help you do it.”

The boatman, with the corners of his mouth raised, carved his will into the blank space created by fear.

“Live in pleasure today.”

The boatman wishes. A day of joy, rapture, delight, rapture, joy, and ecstasy.
A pleasure that is filled in an instant.
And so, the natural fear that humans possess weighed down Encred’s entire body.

‘Protect Anne.’

Everything the boatman said turned into fear and came closer.
He must have planned everything for that one moment.
Rescuing Anne and helping Encred were all part of his plan.
One mistake and everyone around me would die. There was no turning back today.
Yes, I admit it. It was fatal. Fear was eating away at my whole body. It was likely that I would collapse like this. The human spirit was not infinite. It was bound to wear out.
So they locked people up with fear and forced them to go forward.
Encred felt fear too. He was human too.
But fear and dread are the scariest at first. They become more bearable the more they are repeated.
Fear is probably one of the most powerful emotions that move humans.
If pleasure awaits in return, it will be even more so.
And now Encred distinguished between what the boatman could and could not do.

‘The captain can guess the future by looking at the present, but he cannot know the past.’

If the boatman knew his past, he would not have tried to use fear to sway his mind.
The author of the bizarre hobby with the purple lamp does not know himself before today repeated itself.
Encred thought of the past.
That is, those who were lost because they were weak.
Those who could not be protected with their own hands.
The time that was distorted by one choice.
Things that he had already experienced several times.

“If I stop here, everything I’ve done so far will be meaningless.”

So I said.
The boatman’s expression became distorted. It was definitely more of annoyance than a smile. Then the lamp began to shake and the river began to sway.

“……You’ll regret it.”
“I do that every day.”

There was a moment of silence. The boatman’s face was still the same, but he seemed to be frowning.
Then, I felt like my body was floating. And although it seemed like part of a dream, I heard a few strange voices.

“Good job.”
“You brat.”
“That’s right.”
“This is the taste. That’s why you bet gold on high odds.”
“Look at that brat’s expression.”

In addition, there was also the sound of giggling. In general, it was chaotic. It
was really noisy.
Encred woke up thinking.
He opened his eyes to see his surroundings, free from the sound that he couldn’t tell if it was a hallucination or a dream. It was still pitch-black night. There were no sounds of demons or beasts.
It couldn’t have been a threat or intuition that woke him up.
Encred wiped his eyes.

‘thank god.’

It seemed like he shed a tear while sleeping. If he had done that in the dorm, everyone, including Rem, would have nicknamed him the leader of tears.
Then, Kreis would have spread it here and there.
Anyway, they were crazy.
Encred closed his eyes a little more and woke up when the sun rose.
Then he looked at where the sun had risen and walked to estimate the direction. Rather than going straight to the Border Guard, he took a detour to find an easier path.
Then he discovered something unexpected.
It was a trace of people. The direction of the grass pressed down between the bushes and the faint smell told him the trace.
This was the mountain range that divides the empire and the continent. It was not a place where people could live.
Then what is this?
A hunter’s trace? It was too deep to see that. Hunters would not come here because their purpose is to hunt, not to commit suicide.
If they don’t feel curious, they are not human.
Encred followed the trace that was hard to find if he wasn’t him, and that was also found by chance and luck. So I found a village.
As soon as I saw it, I knew what kind of village it was.

‘The village of hermits.’

The continent is structured in a way that small villages cannot exist. Since it is a place where monsters and beasts rule, humans live together in cities.
However, occasionally, there are those who cannot adapt to the city and wander.
They cannot adapt to the lord’s exploitation, or they are falsely accused, or they have committed a real crime.
Where should such people live?
They live in hiding to survive. They
have to avoid monsters and beasts, so they do everything they can to live.
The traces that I see now are of such a village. A quick look shows that they have used the natural terrain and dug traps to avoid the approach of beasts and beasts.

‘That’s not the end. They must have also used the distinction between the realms of demons and beasts.’

It’s familiar to Encred, because it was a town like this where he grew up.