A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

I will become a knight. I will protect those who stand behind me. I will erase the Demon Realm.

Following those words upward, you could see what Enkrid truly desired.

“Ordinary life.”

A life of peace, layered with laughter.

A fruit vendor greets you with a smile, and someone roasting potatoes over a hearth shares them with a hungry child. A waitress with deft hands clucks her tongue and knocks heads affectionately while looking after those same kids. Those who had gone on long journeys return bearing gifts. There are tears, yes—but they greet each day with smiles.

Yes, this is the very day Enkrid yearned for the most. The ultimate day he had dreamed of all his life.

Then... can he say he’s experienced that day now?

In part, yes.

So wouldn’t it be enough just to protect what’s within his fence?

To ensure these days repeat themselves?

It would.

Is there any reason to expand that fence?

There isn’t.

Enkrid listened closely to the answer rising quietly from within. It wasn’t wrong.

“Yes. This is what you’ve always wanted.”

The Ferryman’s words carried resolve—certainty and clarity. And the Ferryman offered a grace period.

“For now, this ‘present’ will continue. So you can choose at any time.”

In other words, don’t do anything just yet. Enjoy it.

When Enkrid woke, he spent the day like any other. The Ferryman’s words were valid. The today he truly wished for continued. Training was enjoyable, and the exhilaration of growth remained.

“Your training will continue. Isn’t it fun?”

The Ferryman came out at night and asked. Yes, it was.

Not everything returned just because today repeated. Even after death, the training and lessons Enkrid had undergone remained with his body.

Was that also a gift from the Ferryman?

Was he meant to be satisfied like this?

His goal wasn’t to wander treacherous mountain paths forever. It was to spend a peaceful day in a warm, comfortable home.

“Is everyone busy?”

The next day, Enkrid asked Audin, who was passing by.

“Lately, Ragna’s been like that too. Everyone’s been diligent.”

Rem was focused on training the platoon. Ragna was busy swinging his sword with ten swordsmen under his command.

Pell, who had been hovering nearby, cut in.

“Why? Should I gather them?”

Pell was Enkrid’s adjutant, and Rophod was Ragna’s. Even after becoming knights, that role hadn’t changed.

In Ragna’s case, without Rophod, his subordinates were hard to manage. As for Pell, he simply wanted to stick close to Enkrid.

“Let’s see them around evening.”

It wouldn’t be wrong to call Enkrid the leader of the Mad Order of Knights and the de facto lord of Border Guard.

Some clueless nobles even looked on with suspicion, wondering if he was building a new kingdom within Border Guard.

Enkrid himself had little interest in such talk. In any case, he had rarely ever gathered his people by force.

He had never summoned someone in quiet calm like this before. He had always issued orders in the heat of battle.

That had been true since his days as a squad leader.

And as Pell listened to Enkrid’s words, goosebumps rose on his skin.

“Why?”

His tone was calm. His demeanor unchanged. So there should be no reason for this.

Pell’s gaze turned to Audin, who stood smiling and praying.

“O Lord Father, do You need my hand? Are You speaking through this man?”

What the hell is that about?

Pell ignored it and decided to gather the members. Rem would be last.

“Understood.”

Ignoring the instinctive chill he felt, Pell moved.

Ragna had been swinging his sword from dawn to dusk for the past few days.

He wasn’t training some grand skill or martial technique. Nor was he sparring for enjoyment.

Like a Northern textbook on longsword form, he repeatedly practiced the basics—stance, downward cuts, thrusts, diagonal slashes, one-handed thrusts, turning cuts, and coiling strikes.

It was the same as Pell’s daily training.

“A strong foundation is the only way to climb higher.”

That was Enkrid’s teaching.

Pell had unconsciously learned a great deal from observing him.

In truth, everyone else had too.

“There are levels to knighthood?”

To infuse Will into technique—that’s beginner level. To then add one’s personality—intermediate. To move beyond the confines of technique—advanced.

“And there’s even a top level?”

What was it?

To become variable?

To be a circle one moment, an awl the next? To be free in that transformation?

Pell had once experienced omnipotence.

That feeling—that you could do anything, and the sensation filled your entire being.

As if, with one reach of your hand, you could touch the sun. As if, with one slash of your sword, you could sever the ridgeline of a distant mountain.

Drunk on that sensation, you pour out all your Will and collapse from exhaustion.

Pell had experienced that too. Only, to him, the mountain wasn’t Pen-Hanil. And the sun wasn’t in the sky.

“Captain.”

The sun, the mountain, and Enkrid were synonymous.

That’s why Pell had sought Enkrid—and got thoroughly thrashed.

Some might’ve crumbled in that moment, singing of despair and defeat.

Some might’ve scoffed at the idea of defining knighthood in stages based on beginner and intermediate levels.

“I finally became a knight and now I have to climb even higher?”

Some of the so-called “Greenhouse Knights” of the Empire probably felt that way.

Pell, of course, didn’t.

Truthfully, the entire Mad Order of Knights didn’t.

“I can go higher.”

Knowing there was more above only made him all the more willing.

If this was the end, that would’ve been disappointing.

And now, he understood why he could afford to be lost in thought like this.

Ragna’s solitary sword practice radiated an intensity like an impenetrable wall.

“Why does it feel so murderous?”

It was like finding the traces of a massive lycanthrope colony that had been hunting sheep.

The battle hadn’t started yet—but it was coming.

The days of sharpening blades on whetstones were returning.

“Ah.”

Only then did Pell realize.

They were all preparing for something.

Fwoosh!

With a single swing, a hot gust of wind followed Ragna’s blade. Could that gust gain a physical form if honed just right?

It didn’t make sense—but if it were Ragna, he might actually pull it off.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Rophod, who had been training nearby, approached and asked.

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

Pell could feel the deadly pressure coming from Ragna. He wasn’t idly passing time. He was tightening and refining his blade.

Why?

There was only one reason.

There was only one person in Border Guard or the Mad Order who set the tone for everyone.

“Evening assembly.”

“Got it.”

Rophod was quick to understand. He didn’t ask who called it. Only the captain could summon Ragna.

Pell then went to find Jaxon and headed to a shop that served tea and desserts.

He was greeted by a blonde beauty.

“Every time I step into this place, I feel strangely tense.”

What had once been a vague feeling now appeared more clearly.

“Two on the roof.”

One under the counter. There were people hidden all around.

“More than you think. So don’t do anything foolish.”

Jaxon appeared before he could notice. He hadn’t sensed a thing—but now Jaxon was at his back.

With a flick—he turned his head and saw Jaxon narrowing his eyes. The moment their eyes met—those seemingly indifferent eyes—he felt gazes on him from every direction.

“If I fight here, I’ll get taken down.”

Of course, there would be no fight. But it felt like stepping into a net someone else had laid.

“I went overboard recently, now I can’t rein myself in. What brings you?”

Jaxon’s words put him at ease.

What was that just now?

It resembled pressure, but something was different.

He had cloaked his five senses in Will, spreading them out over an area. A skill that extended beyond sight, hearing, and sensation—into sheer willful detection.

That’s what had triggered Pell’s sense of déjà vu.

Jaxon had previously used that same technique in Azpen’s battlefield to locate and kill enemies through will-driven perception.

Now, he had refined it even further.

“We’ve been called for a meeting this evening.”

Jaxon nodded. The uncanny sensation around him had vanished completely.

Everything now felt normal.

As Pell turned to leave, the blonde woman called out,

“Take care, cute shepherd~”

Pell gave a vague nod and stepped outside, but he stopped before taking even two steps.

“I’ve never seen her before.”

So how did she know he was a shepherd? He hadn’t introduced himself in there.

He knew she was Jaxon’s lover. So what, does Jaxon act all stoic in public, then spill his guts in bed? That Jaxon?

Didn’t quite match his image.

Of course, that wasn’t the case. Geor Dagger wasn’t just an assassination guild—it was an intelligence guild too.

It would be absurd if such people didn’t know the elite swordsmen operating in their own territory.

Even without that—the Mad Order of Knights was already well-known. They had taken part in more than one major incident.

Ending the civil war, becoming the Demon Slayer—that alone was enough.

Within Naurillia, there were even those who believed that if the Mad Order joined the sluggish southern front, the tide of war would immediately ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ turn.

Though, of course, that was only speculation.

After all, wars weren’t won by chatter over a desk.

Rem, at that moment, was deep inside the mountains, tracking and killing beasts.

When Pell found him, he was facing five trolls.

“Five of them surrounded him.”

The trolls had positioned themselves in a tight circle. It was a formation.

Monsters could be surprisingly cunning. Trolls especially so.

They knew how to fight using their regenerative bodies. Maybe not as tactically refined as Frokk, but they knew how to surround a lone human.

All five trolls wielded heavy wooden clubs. Where they found those was a mystery, but that wasn’t the issue.

Inside the ring, Rem twisted his lips into a smirk. Between one troll’s ribs, Pell saw that smile.

And then the axe moved.

Rem’s axe never once clashed with the trolls’ clubs. It moved like a salmon swimming upstream.

After a few swings, the trolls’ heads floated in midair. No monster lives with its head cut off—so they were dead.

As he walked out from between five corpses oozing black blood, Rem said:

“There’s no such thing as a dead end. There’s always a gap. You die the moment you give up, you dumbasses.”

His training methods were already famous.

Even those who had no issue being called brutal acknowledged that fact.

“Hah!”

Even responses were given as war cries.

“Sorry for feeding you that filthy monster blood.”

Rem muttered to his axe, then signaled to Pell.

“Meeting tonight.”

He didn’t say who had called for it. But everyone understood right away.

“You should’ve said so earlier.”

Rem bared his teeth in a grin. Pell felt uneasy under that smile.

Rem’s aura had shifted—his pressure blanketed the area.

“We’re all gonna die, Captain!”

Someone from the unit shouted.

Rem kept smiling.

“Endure. No one dies from this level.”

If even Pell felt suffocated, how could non-knights possibly endure it?

But it wasn’t his concern.

He wasn’t in charge of other units’ training.

Even Enkrid’s own guard likely had their own harsh regimens going on right now.

“Well then.”

Pell gave a quick bow and left.

It was summer—the days were long. As the late sunset glowed, they lit the bonfire.

Crackle, crackle.

Over the fire, they grilled meat and laid out fruit and jerky. Kraiss had brought it. Abnaier was there too. The fairy and the witch were also present, even though Pell hadn’t delivered the message to them.

Enkrid addressed the gathered with his usual tone and manner.

“We’re going to hunt Balrog.”

The content wasn’t so casual—but no one stopped him. No one even looked surprised.

Frokk nodded first.

“I’ve waited a long time.”

And truth be told, Pell felt the same. Power had come into his hands.

It would be a lie to say he didn’t want to swing it.

He wanted to test his limits and step forward. If that was how Pell felt, the others likely did too.

“I’ve been waiting,” Rem said with a grin.

Ragna stood and gathered his swords.

“Where are you off to, brother?”

Audin asked upon seeing him.

Ragna calmly looked at Enkrid and replied,

“Balrog. Aren’t we going now?”

It wasn’t even sunrise. They didn’t know where Balrog was. How were they supposed to go?

“I’ll lead the way,” Ragna said confidently.

“You know where it is?”

Rem asked.

“We’ll find it if we walk.”

Ragna’s answer was absolute.

Enkrid interjected,

“Not yet.”

His words about going to hunt Balrog were sincere. But not right now.

It was a declaration of intent—that he wouldn’t remain in this peaceful “today” forever.