A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

’Spell Butcher.’

Zaiden had lived intoxicated by madness and honed the sense to see and grasp spells. In that way, he felt spells and cut them down. He became the natural enemy of every mage, created the very concept of spell slaughter, and became the Spell Butcher.

’And every magical society had fought like mad to kill that one man.’

They had fulfilled their wishes again and again, but the Spell Butcher, repeating this day, had brought those wishes to nothing.

It was the technique left behind by a man who had lost everything over the course of a lifetime and resented and hated the world.

’By repeating this day countless times.’

He did not even count how many times he had passed through that day. He wanted only one thing: that there be no bastards using magic anywhere in the world, that not a single one remain.

And so he killed every mage, then killed them again, living wrapped in hatred.

’No, this isn’t living.’

It was falling apart by sheer force.

That was how he declined and collapsed. His mind plunged into the abyss and pain came for him, but what of it?

Killing magic. Sending all who used it back into the dirt.

Even filled with madness, his Will was pure. Because it was pure, it was desperate. Because it was desperate, it was brilliant.

’Brilliant madness.’

Enkrid became Zaiden and lived through his life. The words that came out of that were the words that represented his life. With brilliant madness, he slashed and stabbed through spells.

When he was young, there had been a popular song: if a child didn’t listen, the Knight of Rage would appear, snip, and cut away that wicked heart.

In the age he had lived in, Zaiden had not originally been called by such a term. He was simply the Spell Butcher. The alias Knight of Rage was attached later.

A being who had appeared out of nowhere again and again, fighting without end, struggling without caring for himself—that name later became the knight bearing the epithet Rage.

’Was that story real?’

Enkrid had heard it a few times too. It had not been made into a song, but it was the kind of story parents bringing up children would bring out once in a while.

Since monsters, beasts, and bandits were realistic threats, they could not become the hero of a tale like that, so he had thought it was something people had made up, but—

’Using rage as nourishment.’

The knight who raged to the very end.

”Filthy. Ugly. Corrupt.”

Those were the words that had rung endlessly inside Zaiden, the Knight of Rage.

He had seen the ugliness of human beings, and he had filled the loss born from losing everything precious with rage.

He took up a sword to kill that ugly lot to the last. First among them, he would execute every last spell-slinger.

He was faithful to the voice ringing within him.

What is this? Where and when is this moment? Even as the question rose, the answer came. It was the process of opening his eyes. Right before waking, it was the boundary between dream and reality. In that space between, Enkrid’s thoughts accelerated and repeated themselves.

In the middle of that, the sound of snickering laughter cut in.

”Whether hatred or joy, they’re like two sides of the same coin. In the end, they’re both madness headed in one direction. Don’t you think? They all look like idiots. It’s delightful.”

It was a tone dripping with mockery, and the snickering laughter called to mind the Ferryman.

Several other voices cut in too, each voicing its own opinion.

”Even drunk on madness, the road still continues.”

”No matter what happens, the end is the same.”

”It was always going to end like this. Even now, choose a day that’s merely tolerable.”

Three voices. One watched from the sidelines, another despaired, and another urged surrender.

”He only helps. Rising beyond that help is something you have to do yourself.”

A new voice showed goodwill. The last voice was a question.

”So what are you going to do?”

What do you mean, what am I going to do?

Even while following the voices within him, Enkrid’s goal was clear and his Will was vivid.

Swordsmanship is enjoyable. But he had not forgotten everything by sinking into it.

”Wake up, Enki.”

Zaiden spoke. His tone was calm, but within it Enkrid felt endless regret, attachment, and remorse.

That was different from when he had become the Knight of Rage, wrapped in madness. His final memory rose up.

”So every mage in the world is a monster and a bastard? Bullshit! Where in the world is there a law like that? If you pick up a sword and kill a child, you’re a son of a bitch, but that same sword can kill the monster that was trying to kill that child too!”

He was a young mage. A promising genius, probably, something like that.

That young genius coughed up blood and shouted himself hoarse. The funny thing was, he had not repeated even a single day with the mage in front of him.

That mage prepared over and over, pinned Zaiden down, subdued him, and then, instead of killing him, tried to talk.

If he had killed him, the repeated day would have paused for a while and moved on toward tomorrow. In that way, Zaiden was forced to cast anchor in the present. That drifting ship had been forcibly stopped like that.

It was also something that would never have happened if he had not just faced the three men called the Masters of the Golden Thread.

So perhaps destiny and the Goddess of Fortune really were fickle.

The Spell Butcher had finally been caught by a mage.

”Why did your madness come to be? You didn’t just go mad for no reason. So let’s hear the reason why you hate mages so much.”

That was how the conversation began, and at the end of it came a blood-spitting tirade.

”What if the person holding the spell is right? One of my comrades—the one you put a hole in on the way here—saved more than a thousand people from dying in a flood.”

Was it a lie, or the truth?

Did that matter? Even if those words were true, was that any reason for me to stop what I have to do now?

Of course not.

He knew that no matter how much he swung this sword, none of the dead would return. He knew the hole in his heart would never be filled with anything but rage.

He would never be able to speak of peace and happiness again.

”What a horribly pitiful being you are.”

The young mage—no, the young sage—had glimpsed the principles of the world, and he looked at Zaiden consumed by rage with the same eyes he used to gaze at truth.

”So all you need to do is vent your own rage? Is that right? Is that really what you want?”

He binds me with spells and does nothing but babble nonsense. He’s a black thing. Cut him down and that’s that.

”Get a grip. Is magic really the bad thing? No, it isn’t. People are the bad thing. The ones who use it are the bad ones.”

Days? Weeks? Months? Caught like that, he lost track of time passing. A few mages had tried to capture him alive out of greed for his body.

They were probably thinking of turning him into something like a Death Knight.

The young sage was different.

”I hope that one day you find peace.”

His wish was selfless.

How much time passed like that?

Zaiden stepped one pace out of the black-and-white world. He recovered a portion of the sanity that had driven itself mad because it did not want to judge right and wrong.

From then on, his only wish was peace. A single small cabin where he would never face storms, bandits, monsters, beasts, or even people at all.

A life where he would wake up, chop firewood, light the fire when it snowed, and live only by consuming what he had to eat each day.

His only wish was peace.

He no longer wanted to feel enjoyment or joy. Because he knew he would lose it, he could not fill himself with it. He had stepped back in fear and could no longer dream of the future, so he became trapped in today. That was his end.

”It was the worst.”

That was another Ferryman’s voice. No Ferryman could possibly have welcomed the day he kept repeating.

And Zaiden had not listened to what others said, either.

He had gone mad, and while mad, he repeated the day.

”Back then, he was a real pain in the ass.”

That was another Ferryman’s voice. Zaiden, who had desperately prayed for peace, had changed, and everything he had realized in his life now led into the Enkrid of the present.

”Wish for peace, but—”

One more time, that happiness.

What was Zaiden’s true wish? He said he wished for peace, but what was the true wish of the Ferryman who wanted to become an unchanging rock, always the same?

To meet again the dead wife and children, the adoptive father, the friend, the comrades he had lost.

Because he dreamed of an ending like that, he helped Enkrid. Abandoning the self he held as Ferryman, he bet everything on him.

’Wish received.’

I’ll support your dream too.

Enkrid opened his eyes. The Ferryman had decided to help and reached out a hand from beyond the madness.

”Crazy bastard! If you don’t get your head on straight, I’ll crack your skull with an axe!”

The moment his reason returned, he heard Rem shouting.

’As if you could.’

Now he could even spit out an arrogant line like that. Ah, that was something he said inwardly. Enkrid thought, then opened his mouth.

”A challenge?”

”...What do you mean, a challenge!”

That was something Rem shouted from far away while fighting the fairy and the dwarf. One look and it was clear he wasn’t losing.

Thinking that, Enkrid raised Today, his engraved weapon. It wasn’t even an ego sword, yet he could hear the sword speaking.

’Isn’t this it?’

It was asking if what he really wanted wasn’t to lose himself in exhilaration and revel in it.

The second reason he had sunk so deeply into the joy of swordsmanship was this sword. Today had upheld his Will and joined in with him at once. It felt like they had played hard together.

Enkrid felt the flow of mana flying toward him. It still looked half like a sword. It would make sense if he had to become drunk on madness again to see it, but—

’Across countless todays.’

Zaiden had found a new direction. He had learned how to perceive spells without being consumed by madness. He had known it and yet not done it, but now Enkrid knew everything he had realized as well.

The Ferryman had once more made himself Enkrid’s teacher, and Enkrid accepted that.

’Everything through swordsmanship.’

Now he did not become intoxicated by those words, but clearly distinguished them and accepted them. What helped was learning how to split his thinking apart.

The reason Enkrid could do at once what Zaiden had taught him was that it was already something he knew and something he could do.

’Thought partition.’

The sense for perceiving spells was based on madness. Just as it was, Enkrid read the flow of mana.

”Merd-Ku-Baten!”

He heard the cry of Eudokia, one of the men called the Masters of Astrail. It was a cry layered with overlapping voices and resonance, as if it contained mystery.

At the same time, mana surged, a cluster of light gathered before Enkrid, took on human form, and thrust out a long spear.

It was the spell called Death Knight, said to be one of the pinnacles of necromancy, recreated into the spell called Knight of Radiance.

It was a technique worthy of a Master of Astrail.

It was also a spell of such difficulty that even Esther could not easily imitate it rashly.

Because it had no physical substance, it could not be cut, and as long as the light did not go out, it would not die.

He could have simply fought it with a blade wrapped in Will at the stage of shaping, but Enkrid did not even need to do that.

Just as the man named Zaiden once had been, right now he was the natural enemy of every mage.

The Knight of Radiance thrust the spear in its hand, then collapsed as it brushed past Enkrid.

The cluster of light scattered through the air like fireflies dispersing.

Through the rain falling in heavy drops, Eudokia’s eyes flew wide open. His bloodshot gaze glared at Enkrid as though it would chew him up and swallow him whole. Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth.

A light of resolve entered Eudokia’s eyes.

He had consumed part of his own entrails and part of his spell world, and burned through half the relics he possessed.

The falling rain thickened. A few relics would buy him a little time.

Thinking that, he formed a seal and was just about to prepare a spell.

The Enkrid from before had been a madman intoxicated by swordsmanship. Which meant he had only enjoyed fighting while taking on the blades charging straight at him.

Then what about now?

”Fighting is done with your head.”

Something Lua Gharne had said countless times. The Enkrid of now was a knight completed through those teachings of hers together with all the experience he had built up so far.

The opening was the same as before. He charged straight in head-on, and Eudokia blocked the front with several spells.

A wall of wind, a rock burial, an intangible prison, things like that.

Instead of meeting all those spells, Enkrid accelerated.

Bang!

To anyone who was not a knight, the fight ended emptily.

For an instant Enkrid’s figure vanished, and when he appeared again, he was standing with his sword plunged into Eudokia’s stomach.

The falling rain tapped against the shoulders of the mage with a hole through his belly and the knight gripping the sword.

”How did you break through my barrier? Since you kept striking away the flow from outside, I changed it so nothing could touch me without piercing the barrier first.”

Eudokia asked. The moment he saw Enkrid cutting down spells, he had modified the barrier spell, yet it had been broken through.

Enkrid answered in a simple tone.

”With force.”

If cutting the flow of mana was finesse—

Enkrid also possessed the strength to meet that spell head-on.

And he also knew the tactics for how to use that strength.

This was the result of all of it.

Blood streamed between Eudokia’s tightly shut lips.

”So I die like this.”

He calmly accepted his own end. He did not go so far as to complete the spell by offering up even his own life in the end. He stopped as he was.

If the spell he had been manifesting now had been completed, he would not have gone down this easily.

Though, it was not really a situation you could call easy.

There had been wave after wave of countless spells. Flame, freezing, wind, stone, lightning, poison, mist, even mental domination. And yet here before him stood the bastard who had cut through all of it and forced his way in.

’I’ve only done good things for the others.’

If another Master stepped to the front, that one would probably prepare thoroughly and start the fight properly.

A mage was most frightening when hidden behind the veil.

A wiser one probably would not even think of fighting at all.

There had been more loss than gain in fighting a bastard like this.

”What a shame.”

Eudokia looked up at the sky. The moon and stars were invisible behind the dark clouds. If a demon dreams of ascension, a mage looks to the stars and seeks truth.

”Such a shame.”

That was the final testament of the Master of Astrail.

Enkrid pulled out his sword. Blood ran down the blade, and soon the rain washed it away.

The man who had slaughtered spells with a blue-tinged sword turned around.

-Well done.

It was the Ferryman’s voice, calm, yet faintly wistful.