Eternally Regressing Knight Chapter 785

785. Different

A fierce fiery serpent cut off his ankle, and his body was torn in half from his black shoulder, which held black flames.

-It was fun. See you again.

Balrog greeted him like any other day. His words, “See you again,” did not mean that he would repeat today, but that he would lock him in a labyrinth.
Although the meanings were different, they still understood each other. Encred nodded and died. It was the answer to “See you again.” And so it was his turn to greet the nineteenth day.
The moon that held fire lost its light and fell, and the boatman on the boat greeted him.

“Ggggggggg.”

The boatman opened his mouth, conveying his laughter. It was a mouth that was no different from a pitch-black hole without a tongue. The laughter was short and thick, and it just passed by.
Then, every time the pitch-black darkness appeared and disappeared, the boatman conveyed his intentions.

“I am trapped in this day.”
“Are you suffering? You brought this upon yourself.”
“You will eventually die out after struggling like this.”
“There is no flame that burns forever.”

Creak, the boat groaned as it rocked on the river. The sound brushed my ears.

“You can never get out of here.”

The boatman came out several times, and each time he spoke of a certain future. Encred read the meaning that permeated the boatman’s will, unlike usual. It wasn’t accurate. It was just a feeling. Could it be that the realm of intuition and intuition, trained in reality, was influencing this place? Or was it just because he saw it so often?
The reason didn’t really matter.

“Do you want me to get over it?”

Between the boatman’s black eyes, dark gray eyeballs rolled around several times. No, they were pupils of a color that could not be defined as dark gray. They
turned golden, then red, then blue, then green, and then all of those colors mixed together and turned black.
The monster’s eyes were black, and so was the boatman’s. The difference between the two was that the monster’s eyes seemed to be dyed black, while the boatman’s eyes were tangled and clumped together, making them look black.

“Can you fall over?”

The boatman asked, but Encred did not answer. Without opening his mouth, the boatman conveyed his intention again.

“There is a way to get past today. If you want to know, tell me then.”

Force, oppression, intimidation, coercion, suppression.
There was not a single bit of such meaning.
The two eyes in the boatman’s face were greenish, and the black seemed to be soaked with green. That dark green. Compared to Shinar’s light green eyes, their light was too dull, but the determination in those eyes was something I had never seen in a boatman before.
It was a glimpse of pity, compassion, and sympathy.
Encred’s spirit and determination were always firm and upright. He knew how to calm his mind even in moments like this. Otherwise, he would have fallen for Shinar’s joke long ago.

“……I almost got fooled.”

Encred muttered and gently dismissed the boatman’s intentions. The dull green in the boatman’s eyes seemed like it would disappear for a moment, but instead of squirming, it remained firmly in place.

“You are truly crazy.”

The tone of voice was slightly different from before. At first, the boatman was like an inanimate object that couldn’t see anything as usual, and the boatman who suggested the method showed a hint of compassion.
He had noticed Shinar’s emotional state so much that he had realized it without realizing it. The pieces of emotion that flowed from the boatman’s words were so delicate and insignificant. But now, he clearly saw anger. To be exact, it was annoyance and absurdity.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about that now.
There was a time when he was gathering Cronas here and there and luckily earned a lot. It wasn’t by selling his sword skills, but he ended up with a bag of gold coins.
At that time, Encred visited a fairly famous training school. There were many monsters and evil spirits on the continent, and in this environment, it was natural to handle at least one weapon from a young age.
That’s why there were many training schools and training centers in the city. Encred went to find a famous teacher among them with a bag of gold coins.
The teacher had also advised him to give up his life of eating rice from a knife at first, using a polite tone.
Encred listened to the teacher’s words with one ear and let them go out the other, obsessed with skills and such.

“It’s better to quit. Even though I’m just a teacher here, I’m not good enough to be considered a city-level powerhouse on the entire continent. I can make a living by teaching.”

Although she spoke humbly, she was a woman who once stayed at the escort unit at the top of Lengadis. Her skills were real. Encrid wanted to learn the real thing.

“So what should I do next?”

Encred’s question did not deviate much from that content.
At some point, her eyebrows, which had been speaking gently, began to tremble.

“I said it was better to close it.”

The speech became a little shorter.

“Encred, you only listen to what you need to hear. You really have very handy ears.”

There was a bit of criticism mixed in.

“Do you not understand what the word ‘close’ means?”

He got annoyed.
He just remembered that time. It seemed to overlap with the current boatman.
He looked at him with pity, then got angry, and for a moment, his past memories struck. Encred just shrugged his shoulders, letting his thoughts drift away. It was a response to the boatman saying that he was crazy.
Encred’s gesture seemed to mean that he knew that now, and it also seemed to ask what that mattered. Both of them were expressions that they would not even listen to what the other person said.

“Yeah, I guess hanging around in prison today isn’t so bad.”

With those words, the dark green eyes blurred and moved away. Encred felt his body floating in the air. Without even blinking, his surroundings distorted, and as he opened his eyes beyond the darkness, the process of opening his eyes once again ended.
It was today again.
While talking to the boatman, the afterimage of the pain blurred. Because of the various conversations, Encred now had little time to think. He was slow to recover from the fight as he was trying to adapt to the unexpected appearance the boatman had shown him.
The tactics that he believed would be somewhat successful, if not perfect, were shattered.

‘The calculations weren’t wrong either.’

Encred found the best line of attack in all calculations, and Balrog did not, so he was ahead in insight.

“We have guests?”

Just as the opponent was about to speak, Encred was about to strike him in one breath, but since he believed that he was not a big threat anyway, he looked at the opponent indifferently and spoke.

“Wait a minute. Let me think about it.”
“……What?”

I didn’t know the absurdity that the other person was showing.

“If you come any further I’ll ring the bell, so wait.”

Pressure, the intangible pressure that is embodied. He fought the demon of struggle that even the demon realm avoided eighteen times.
What’s more, that demon, Balrog, tried to suppress Encred with his pressure every time they fought. Only after enduring that could he actually wield his sword.
That was Balrog’s own test. Encred overcame it every time.
In the process, the rejection that had been wriggling and reacting inside him changed little by little. The first method of using Will that he learned existed in the realm of the unconscious, not the conscious, but it was difficult to easily shake off Balrog’s pressure with that alone.

‘If the process of going from a knight to a knight is to use will unconsciously.’

When you become a knight again, you must consciously train Will. It was one of the theories that was gradually established under the name of Will Training. That is how you consciously shake off the pressure.
Balrog’s form of pressure is a chain of burning flames. From the moment you faced him, you felt like your flesh would be cooked and burned by the heat, and if you were even slightly distracted, you would die from the pressure. Encred used to shake off the chains and release his pressure, and he showed it now.
The form of pressure is a wall, a very thick wall whose thickness cannot be measured. It is a wall that blocks any kind of pressure, and it is a wall that cannot be overcome with something like an iron skewer in your hand.
The opponent ignored Encred’s words and stopped walking. Just by not flinching, he proved his courage and skill.
However, he did not come any closer. He faced the wall made by Encred and saw Balrog’s shadow, and he remembered that resisting the fear engraved in his soul was the fate of an intelligent being. He
had to do that if he wanted to avoid giving in and bowing his head.
But was this the time to give in? He had bowed and bowed his head countless times to Balrog, but now was not the time. He began to fight against Encred’s pressure.
While he was buying time, Encred reminisced about the fight.
It was not important to reminisce about the fight itself over and over again. Instead, he dug deep. Instead of repeating the recollection, he thoroughly dug into everything, including the movements before and after, and the psychological state, in one fight.
However, this was like some kind of foolishness. There was no need to thoroughly dig into it.
The reality was simple and clear. Encred caught the thread of his thoughts that were rolling around randomly and organized them clearly.

‘In terms of number of cases, it is ahead.’

Counting, estimating, and striking. The entire process seemed like a system established by someone who had dealt with numbers all his life.
There was no waste. The blade moved along the set line smoothly, the movements for it were clear, and the swordsmanship mixed with such logic was beautiful.
The blade, which momentarily caught the light, seemed like it could split one of the crystals in an instant.

‘You can’t get any further than that.’

The one who rushed in, as if it were mainly fitting Encred’s calculations, was the flame whip called Salamandra. The whip enjoyed the water fight as if it were boasting about its ego. Then, Balrog swung its wings, fists, feet, and sword, moving freely within the predicted picture.
At that moment, Encred mixed the sword of coincidence. It was the process of binding the demon that had escaped the calculations with spider webs again. And he could not stop Balrog, who was moving within the scope of the calculations.

‘It was different.’

Balrog’s swordsmanship was different. It was fast, heavy, and powerful enough to defy calculation and expectation for a moment.

-Look.

In the midst of the fight, Balrog sent his message through telepathy.
His right hand came into view on its own. It was a sword burning with black flames, a magic sword named Urt.
The flames of the magic sword spewed out flames repeatedly. Encred dodged all of the attacks, knowing that once it was lit, it would never go out.
His bangs were singed, and he had to pull out the cloth gauntlet he was wearing on his left hand and throw it away, but he somehow held on. It would take a long time to revisit the fight.

‘Unnecessary work.’

There was no point in giving meaning to the process. The outcome of the fight was not determined by calculation.
Instead of igniting a flame, Balrog’s Urt sank inward. Then, it took shape over the crimson blade.

‘knife.’

Instead of burning and blazing, it was shaped like a blade. That black sword could not be stopped. It was something that could not be calculated.
That was different.
And Encred saw something there.

‘difference.’

I have seen this difference not only in Balrog but also in others. I have felt it in Ragnar’s blade, in Audin’s armor, in Rem’s axe, in Saxon’s thrust.

What’s different? What was different?

Now that I have achieved some of my past dreams, I think of those who have helped me get to where I am today. I keep doing this like a crazy person,
going back through my memories and recalling and reliving each and every thing they showed me back then.

“Whoa!”

My opponent had just overcome Encred’s pressure. He took his sword out of his sleeve and held it in both hands.

“Where the hell did you come from!”

He pretended to run towards me while shouting, then threw two daggers. It was clever. It was amazing how he could throw daggers while holding swords in both hands.

Tta-dang!

In his right hand, the Dawn Danjo, in his left, the Penna.
Encred faced his opponent with swords in both hands. The fight was short. He subdued his opponent before he could use his special ability. Repeating it more than ten times made him see his opponent’s weaknesses more clearly. His strengths became blurred, and his weaknesses became clear.
He moved forward again. His thoughts were never finished. His recovery was still in progress.
Encred faced another day and died again.
The red sword with flames gathered together could not cut anything. The blade of Will that Encred had seen could block it.

‘but.’

Pushed out of power. Finally cut down.
What is the difference?
Today passes twenty, thirty, forty, fifty times.
In the midst of days of pain and suffering, Encred had the freedom of time to relive countless times.