A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Owl showed up on the third day Enkrid had been staying in the tent.

It was just after dawn, and he was in the middle of moving through a taxing physical technique.

As he trained in front of the tent, Owl approached.

Sun-browned skin, painted markings on her face, bright eyes.

Her presence felt different. Her expression seemed noticeably softer than before.

At least now, she didn’t look like someone about to swing an axe at someone’s neck.

Her words confirmed it.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Owl.”

A completely different temperament from when they first met—calm.

That was the Western way.

Enkrid had come to understand the general nature of Westerners.

They were direct, without pretense.

Rem was the same.

“Feels a bit late for introductions, doesn’t it?”

Enkrid replied indifferently, stretching his muscles as he spoke. He grabbed the fingertips of his left hand with his right and twisted his arm, pressing down along the line from elbow to wrist. It was a method of loosening the muscles and tendons from elbow to fingertip.

This level of flexibility didn’t come overnight. It took daily effort and discipline.

Of course, Enkrid had been doing this for years.

As he loosened up, Owl’s gaze lightly scanned his body.

Tall frame, clearly defined muscles, yet surprisingly smooth.

His physique was strong, dense, and relaxed—

A body that would make cannibals shake their heads in dismay.

Cannibals hated that tough, sinewy flesh.

“Well, even so. A proper greeting is still necessary.”

There wasn’t any emotion in her eyes suggesting she’d been ogling a stranger’s body. Owl was composed.

“Well, sure. If you say so.”

Enkrid nodded slightly. Owl asked,

“Can I speak casually?”

“That’s better for me too.”

And with that, their tone was settled—straightforward.

Owl felt grateful to Enkrid, who had become a human totem. That was why she’d come.

“I was hoping to show you around a bit.”

Owl said with grace, lifting her skirt slightly as she spoke.

Enkrid could already tell.

There were at least two daggers hidden on her.

He hadn’t seen them directly, but her walk and gestures said enough.

Her steps were weighted differently—her right foot heavier. She probably had a heavier weapon hidden there.

There was no way a woman who tried to chop someone down with an axe the moment she saw them would walk around unarmed.

Anyone could see that Owl was a warrior.

Her appearance and actions both confirmed it.

Her flowing skirt even seemed perfectly designed to conceal something.

If she was Rem’s wife, she might even use that skirt to obscure the opponent’s line of sight in combat.

In any situation, a seasoned warrior could judge another’s skill by turning everything into a sparring scenario.

Owl stood under the just-risen sun and waited for his response.

The sunlight poured down, dry and clean, making movement feel good in this place.

Enkrid had just finished his warmup.

Wiping off sweat with a dry cloth, he stepped into the tent and asked Hira,

“Is it alright if I step out for a bit?”

“Come back before noon if you can.”

Hira spoke like she was making a polite request.

It had been three days since she’d properly slept, yet somehow she kept going.

Enkrid nodded.

Several eyes were now beginning to focus on him.

After three days, more people had started recovering.

Among them was the first child he had met.

“My name is Ziba. When I grow up, I’m going to marry you.”

The girl was bold.

Lua Gharne puffed out her cheeks and smirked, clearly amused.

“Stand in line, little human.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“There’s already a long line of rivals in front of you.”

Ziba pouted at that.

The very first thing she had said upon standing from bed was that she would be his bride.

She really was something.

Her mother, having heard her daughter’s words, didn’t bat an eye.

Shouldn’t she be more concerned?

But no—she laughed heartily, while the woman who’d been startled by her daughter’s declaration simply went back to sleep without a word.

Well, that’s how it was around here.

Ziba still needed sleep anyway.The thin blanket covering her had been kicked off. She nestled into the pillow.

Her mother gently pulled the blanket back over her and asked,

“Should I come with you?”

She meant: would he need someone to assist him.

Enkrid shook his head and stepped back outside.

“Let’s go.”

Owl said, and Enkrid followed her lead.

In front of the tent, a man who had been staring at him strangely for several days stood again.

But Enkrid ignored him.

It was a look of conflicted admiration and resentment. A face he’d never seen before.

For a Westerner—who typically either liked or hated plainly—he was an odd one.

He seemed friendly with Ziba’s mother, so Enkrid didn’t think much of it.

Owl led Enkrid out beyond the tents.

Between rows of tents, sunlight streamed down and lined the earth with light.

“Did you cut Rem’s head off yet?”

Enkrid asked as he stepped forward and widened his stride.

Below his feet, a column of ants scattered.

The moment his foot hit the ground, the ant troops fled.

Off to the side, a dung beetle was busy rolling a ball of cow dung.

Would Lua Gharne eat that too?

No, probably not.

She, like humans, had her preferences when it came to bugs.

“If a person’s head gets cut off, they die.”

Owl stated a universal truth.

Enkrid knew that already.

“Seemed like he deserved to die.”

Owl almost agreed—then stopped herself.

She remembered what happened the night before.

The night Rem slept at her house.

***

“I want to have a child.”

If there’s something you want, you should say it proudly—

That was Owl’s belief.

When she said it, her partner just replied plainly.

“I see.”

No change in expression.

That same face that always seemed to only care about axes, fighting, combat, cannibals.

There had been a time when he was cold as poison. When had he become like this?

Owl stopped thinking.

They had just a week left before the marriage ceremony.

Rem was focused on battle and hunting.

Watching from the side, that focus looked like…

“It feels like he’s running away.”

Just a feeling.

Rem would never run.

Owl rested her chin on her hand and watched him swing his axe.

The question, Do you want to run away?, almost left her lips.

She saw how untruthful she was being.

What if Rem said he did want to run away? Could she handle that?

She had looked away.

That was the first time she had hidden her heart and said something else.

That was when she said she wanted to have a child.

She had her hopes.

Rem was overflowing with talent—future chieftain, future hero.

How many in the West were qualified to be a hero or chieftain?

Someone like Enkrid, maybe.

Why would someone like Rem want to run away?

He loved this land—more than he loved her.

Owl liked that about him too.

So no, he wasn’t running.

She was just wrong.

That was how he had always been.

He didn’t run.

One week after their wedding.

He chose to sleep in the fields instead of at home, and beheaded a warrior known as a hero among the cannibal tribes.

The low sky and wide-spread clouds above looked like a draped ceiling.

Blood dripped from his axe, painting red streaks across that pale ceiling.

“AAAAAARGH!”

Her mate let out a howl—a victorious scream.

It came after a frenzied, savage swing of her axe.

And then, Rem disappeared.

Why? She didn’t know. He didn’t say a word.

At first, she was stunned.

This bastard?

Rem had told her once: he’d never considered another woman as his mate.

They’d grown up together, used similar techniques, and even their temperaments had begun to mirror each other.

“I don’t doubt your mother, but the two of you seem like you came from the same womb.”

Her father, before he became chieftain, used to say that.

“Is that so?”

Owl had liked hearing that.

But had Rem not felt the same?

Was her mate—her partner for life—not really on the same page as her?

Was it just me?

Was she the only one who had those feelings?

Rem had left.

A month later, the shock turned into fury.

Not even a single letter—how could that make sense?

“Forget him,”

her father, now chieftain, said.

Much had happened since. Years passed.

Bloodstains remained on the fields.

In the wind-blown summer fields, Owl made a decision.

If he returns, I’ll cut off his head.

After the confusion and anger had passed, even the worry faded.

What remained was quiet despair.

And then—Rem returned.

“You said once… you wanted to have a child.”

He’d been avoiding alcohol for days, and now, out of nowhere, he approached and said that.

His shadow stretched long in front of her tent.

Owl looked at that shadow and spoke:

“I’d rather hang that empty skull of yours on the wall than have a kid right now.”

It was venomous.

“Empty skull” likely didn’t mean she’d literally cut off his head—

She meant that thing he had but never used: a brain.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Rem scratched his head.

He could act shameless with anyone else, but not with Owl.

He had abandoned his responsibilities and shirked his duties.

Most of all, he had left his mate—his life partner—behind.

Rem acknowledged how pathetic he had been.

That was why he could stand here now and speak.

“What kind of world do you think our child should be born into?”

There was a time he believed the West was a stagnant land.

He thought the Westerners had simply stopped moving, that they’d lost their will to progress.

Wouldn’t an immortal madman be better than this?

But no—

He wasn’t comparing them to some lunatic who defied natural order and trampled taboos.

Still, it had felt that suffocating.

Had he set out to claim something? No. That was just an excuse—a justification.

He realized that only after he’d left the West.

More precisely, after he met Enkrid.

There had been something he’d once wanted, something he gave up on before even realizing what it was.

“I’ll be the one to change it.”

The desire to change the West.

He had given it up before he even understood what it was. He had forgotten. Discarded it.

Rem was a loser. A runaway.

He admitted it—and that’s why he could no longer receive the spirits.

If the divine chose him now, he would die.

That would be the end.

He’d lose the chance to change things.

He’d lose his chance to live.

He couldn’t walk into that death.

So instead, he became a coward who chased fleeting pleasures.

He avoided Owl’s gaze.

He couldn’t show her what a disgrace he had become.

And he couldn’t ask her to live with such a man, to remain bound to a failure.

So he ran.

God, how shameful.

Rem had avoided the issue, but he no longer ran.

Now, he had learned. He had realized.

He understood what a fool he was—

And he understood how he needed to live.

“Running won’t [N O V E L I G H T] solve anything.”

He would rather walk a path where he might die than become a puppet that silently endures life.

So he would walk.

That didn’t mean he believed he would die.

He would shout at the unjust world—

That none of this could stop him.

That if he desired something, he would move forward to claim it.

Enkrid had done the same.

The first time Rem saw him, he looked like a man on the verge of death.

Then, he became someone interesting to watch.

And later—he became someone too precious to die.

As the past resurfaced and time marched forward, he watched his captain raging with everything he had.

Enkrid spoke with his hands, his feet, his whole body.

He would not give up.

He would not fall to despair.

Whatever blocked his path—he would crush it.

That was the kind of man he was.

Rem had learned from him.

He had awakened.

He looked back on his life.

He remembered what he left behind.

Every excuse he made was just that—an excuse.

The clueless bastard, the stray cat—they had just given him the trigger.

Only then could Rem turn his head and truly look at the West.

Only then could he face what he had left behind—what he had given up.

And so now, he could say:

“I’m ashamed to admit it, but I ran.”

Rem spoke honestly, without pretension.

Calmly, but steadily, the words flowed.

Since that incident, he’d gotten better at speaking, and now he could finally express it with clarity.

Why he ran.

That if he had a child, he wanted that child to live in a different world than this.

That had become his new goal.

Owl still looked at his shadow.

Whether speaking or listening, both of them remained composed.

“Rem,” she said,

“If you want something, I’ll cut it off and give it to you.”

If that would be his atonement, then so be it.

Rem replied.

Owl lifted her head.

Her gaze moved—from the shadow’s feet, to its shins, to its knees, to its waist, to its chest, and finally—

To its face.

Gray eyes met his.

From childhood, Rem had always been honest.

At least with her.

Should she call it patience, this waiting?

It would’ve been better if they’d walked together from the beginning,

But since he came back now, she wouldn’t cut off his head for being late.

“Took you long enough. I’m sorry,” Rem said.

Owl couldn’t forgive the old Rem.

But she felt the weight of her mate’s torment in her chest.

It felt like she’d stepped forward without even realizing it. Maybe a speck of dust had gotten in her eye.

Even though today was probably the clearest, cleanest day yet.

Under the bright sunlight, Owl reached out her hand.

“Take it.”

Rem took her hand.

“I’ll let you sleep here. Just for tonight,”

Owl said.

But she’d probably let him stay not just tonight, but from now on.

They talked.

Rem poured out his heart.

Owl voiced her hurt.

By the end of the conversation, something inside her twisted a bit.

“Oh… mm. I still have something I need to do.”

“So what—you show up, pour your heart out, and now you’re telling me you’re leaving again? Just grabbing your shaman powers and taking off?”

This fucking bastard.

Owl couldn’t help but swear.