Eternally Regressing Knight Novel - Chapter 962
Chapter 962: Chapter 960 – In the Dead of Night
Chapter 960 – In the Dead of Night
“Captain, you and Rem need to get to work starting tonight. The minions definitely know we’ve arrived, but they won’t expect us to act this immediately. On the contrary, there’s a high probability they assume we’re currently agonizing over our next move and trying to outsmart them. Therefore, we strike instantly. I heard Andrew Gardner is currently managing the bulk of this operation, but we absolutely do not contact him. We leave his side completely alone and move entirely independently. That will leave the minions completely bewildered. If we exploit that gap in their perception, they won’t even realize what hit them. Deceiving both allies and enemies is the core of this strategy. We will specifically deceive Andrew. Ah, the operation name is ‘The Capital Killer’. The ultimate goal is to use this to drag out whatever mastermind is hiding behind the minions.”
That was the rapid-fire explanation Krais had just spewed out.
Enkrid didn’t catch half of it.
“Speak so people can actually understand you, you bastard,” Rem scolded him.
Regardless of what anyone else was saying, Esther quietly stared at the teacup and the cookies.
Enkrid picked up a cookie and handed it to her.
The sight of her taking a crisp bite looked like a painting.
When a few crumbs stuck to the corner of her mouth, Enkrid reached over and casually brushed them away.
They were comrades-in-arms, companions marching toward a single shared goal.
This kind of minor consideration was something he did entirely without thinking.
“Did you dump the fairy? Is the Black Flower the only lover you have left now?” Krang, who had been staring at them, asked.
It was obviously a joke, but Enkrid answered with absolute sincerity.
He was genuinely terrified of the sheer fallout that would occur if Shinar ever caught wind of a comment like that.
Wouldn’t it be enough to make him the butt of her jokes for days, if not months?
“No, Shinar is currently training back in the city.”
At Enkrid’s response, Krang’s gaze shifted to Esther.
“Regardless of whether it’s a man or a woman, she possesses an appearance that would bewitch almost anyone.”
Though ironically, neither Krang nor Marcus, who had just said that, were actually bewitched by Esther.
Because neither of them were ‘almost anyone’.
Esther didn’t show any ill will toward the two men’s gazes either.
Naturally, the same applied to the Commander of the Royal Guard and the two soldiers standing watch outside the reception room.
They had stolen a glance at Esther, but immediately averted their eyes.
As expected of men who had rigorously disciplined their minds.
Those who became Royal Guards possessed a level of Will far beyond the ordinary.
As Esther continued to cultivate her spells, she had recently begun radiating an even more alluring, captivating charm.
You could say it suited her moniker, the ‘Black Flower’, more than ever before.
A few meaningless words exchanged between Enkrid and Krang had momentarily slowed the pace of the conversation.
“Right, start explaining the plan,” Enkrid finally said, bringing them back on track.
Hearing that, Krang muttered that Enkrid probably would have made a damn good politician. Krais slightly adjusted his explanation to be a bit more accommodating.
“You just need to fight like Jaxen for a few days. However, you don’t utter a single word to anyone, and you act exactly like a deranged serial killer reveling in the sheer thrill of slaughter.”
He had already finalized the beginning and end of the strategy inside his mind.
As he spoke, he pulled out a piece of paper—who knew when he had grabbed it—jotted down a few words, folded it neatly, and slipped it into an envelope.
He then produced his personal seal from his coat, dripped about ten drops of wax from the candle sitting nearby, and firmly stamped the seal into it.
“Man, you just threw out a seriously irritating name, and you’re saying we need to fight exactly like him?” Rem grumbled as he tossed a few cookies into his mouth.
Brilliant,” Esther marveled, and Krais nodded in confirmation.
“Yes.”
Since the sun hadn’t even set yet, they had plenty of time to rest today.
Truth be told, it wasn’t a journey strenuous enough to leave them feeling particularly fatigued anyway.
Watching them, Marcus was once again struck by a profound realization.
These bastards truly aren’t normal.
Even though he and the King had been calmly proceeding with this operation, these people were practically overflowing with relaxed confidence.
They had literally just been told to become serial killers, yet they were moving as if it were no big deal.
The conclusion was this: they considered fighting demonic minions to be a trivial matter not even worth stressing over.
The Royal Family was naturally capable of handling the minions as well, but it was impossible for them to act this relaxed about it.
The reason?
It wasn’t a matter of comparing sheer military might.
Enkrid and the Madmen Knights possessed a wealth of raw, visceral experience fighting Demonic Realms, monsters, and actual demons.
That experience was the source of their unshakeable confidence.
“Then get some rest for now.”
Krang memorized the list of names he had received from Marcus earlier and immediately burned it using the candle flame.
The paper flared up and left only a pile of gray ash on the table.
With that, the meeting concluded.
They returned to their assigned quarters to rest.
Krais gave them the names and physical descriptions of the targets they needed to kill.
Krang and Marcus had already completed a detailed investigation.
The core of their intelligence centered around Andrew, who had recently been appointed as the Commander of the City Guard.
“This is seriously so damn irritatiiiiiing,” Rem whined halfway through the briefing.
He was more than happy to play the role of a serial killer, but he absolutely loathed the idea of having to fight like Jaxen.
Enkrid handed him the exact words he needed to hear.
“Ah, not confident you can pull it off?”
Twitch.
A vein popped on Rem’s forehead.
“Are you asking me if I’m incapable of mimicking the pathetic tricks of that sneaky alley cat? I know exactly what you’re doing. I know this is a blatant provocation meant to piss me off, but my blood is still boiling, you know that?”
Exactly.
It’s only a true provocation if it pisses you off even when you know it’s a provocation.
Rem leaned forward on his bed, his eyes gleaming.
A vicious, gray light swirled within them.
“You think I can’t do it? Me? The greatest hunter in the entire West?”
He would probably be incredible at it.
Honestly speaking, this was a job far better suited for Rem than Enkrid himself.
Furthermore, while their inner nature might be demonic minions, outwardly, the targets were nobles, weren’t they?
Noble Killer, to Noble Hunter, to Noble Slaughterer—that was the evolution of the monikers Rem had earned.
There was no one better suited for this job than him.
Assassination was the baseline, but the man most perfectly equipped for this specific task was a barbarian whose literal hobby was butchering nobles.
“I have no intention of just sitting around playing either,” Esther interjected.
It was difficult to guess her true motives.
Well, if she wanted to join, he wasn’t going to stop her.
“If you kill them with spells, it will leave obvious traces behind,” Krais pointed out, having pulled up a chair in the bedroom to sit down.
Esther answered instantly.
“I’m going to rip them apart with my teeth.”
The most terrifying part was that she absolutely wasn’t joking.
Esther leaned against the window frame and gazed outside.
It was just before pitch-black darkness blanketed the city.
The fading sunlight slowly seeped through the windowpanes.
It was a warm, pleasant evening.
The fact that they were gathered in a room on such a beautiful day explicitly plotting assassinations was incredibly ironic.
The room was spacious.
It was Enkrid’s assigned room.
“Well then,” Krais said, standing up.
They each washed up, ate, and shook off the fatigue of the journey.
Enkrid also had several maids attend to him, washing his body.
“You have an incredible amount of scars.”
Humans are not Frogs.
Frogs only scar if the injury is accompanied by severe psychological trauma that halts their natural regeneration, but humans are different.
Just because you became a knight didn’t mean you transcended the biological traits of your species, so possessing a body covered in scars was perfectly natural.
Furthermore, Enkrid was a man who had violently crawled his way up from the absolute bottom.
The scars etched into his body were incomparably more numerous than those of any ordinary brawler.
The maid scrubbing his back was not young.
She was one of the senior servants who had served the palace for a very long time.
“Thank you.”
She spoke softly.
Enkrid didn’t know it, but her son had been one of the soldiers deployed to the Southern frontlines during the recent war.
Someone must fight so that those standing behind them can live in peace.
She knew that, yet the middle-aged maid had still spent countless nights drowning in tears.
The sheer anxiety had made it impossible for her to sleep properly.
She had lost her husband when she was young and had raised her nursing infant all by herself.
Because she had a faint trace of noble blood from a past generation, she had barely managed to secure a position as a palace maid, and that position had allowed her to raise her child.
What must a mother’s heart feel like when she hears that the son she raised entirely alone, without a husband, is marching off to war?
“I wish the concept of war would just disappear completely,” the maid confessed.
It was her deepest dream.
The sole purpose of war is to kill and be killed.
Shouldn’t something like that simply cease to exist?
For her son’s sake, and for the sake of everyone else.
That was her wish.
Enkrid softly hummed the melody of The Hero of the End of the War.
“It is a beautiful song,” she said.
She finished washing his back, stepped away, and added one final comment.
“Thanks to you, my son returned home alive.”
It was the maid’s final farewell.
Enkrid gave a slight nod, returned to his room, and slept.
It was a deep, dreamless sleep, devoid of the Ferryman’s presence.
He didn’t sleep for long, but it was exactly the kind of restorative rest that completely washed away his lingering fatigue.
The moment night fell, Enkrid opened his eyes.
Out of sheer habit, he began preparing his gear, but stopped to remove his dagger and the Leather Armor.
He also took off his fairy-woven cloak and hung it neatly to the side.
‘Remove any identifying gear.’
Instead, he threw on a thick, pitch-black outfit and a heavy, nondescript cloak.
Only after finishing his preparations did he open the window and step outside.
He had deliberately requested a room with a large window.
The trade-off was that it was attached to a spire, meaning the drop was dizzyingly high, but was that a problem?
Not a chance.
Enkrid casually poured his Will into the cloak and leaped.
It wasn’t nearly as comfortable or efficient as using the fairy cloak, but this kind of trick was child’s play to him now.
The cloak flared open with a snap, catching the wind and billowing out.
He glided down and landed on the ground.
Despite dropping from a height equivalent to three giants standing on each other’s shoulders, the only noise his boots made hitting the stone was a soft tap.
Rem and Esther were occupying the rooms immediately to his left and right.
Almost at the exact same moment Enkrid landed, Rem and Esther launched themselves from their respective windows.
Rem infused his cloak with the Spirit of the Eagle and drifted down similarly to Enkrid, but he didn’t make even the slightest sound.
It was identical to a cat landing on its paws.
Esther simply leaned against the exterior wall and slowly descended.
Her body slid down the sheer stone surface at a perfectly controlled, constant speed.
A drop from this height was absolutely nothing to any of the three.
And detecting the presence of those around them while moving in total secrecy was equally trivial.
They were knights.
Sensing the auras of ordinary people nearby was something they did effortlessly.
Enkrid immediately began to move.
The very first target Krais had singled out was a member of the pro-peace faction.
He was a member of a noble family vehemently opposed to the war.
He was also reportedly one of the individuals Andrew was actively keeping under surveillance.
If we bump into him, I suppose we should at least exchange a polite nod?
Enkrid thought to himself as he used Assimilation to blend seamlessly into his surroundings, completely erasing his presence.
As he walked, absolutely no one noticed him.
His Assimilation was incredibly natural.
It was several times cleaner and more refined than the technique used by that Aspen knight he had fought.
While they couldn’t just stand directly in front of someone, if they crouched in the bushes lining the pathway, even a patrolling Royal Guard staring right at them wouldn’t be able to spot them.
Just ahead, a lone patrol guard walked past.
‘Let’s circle around the side.’
Rem signaled with his hands.
He extended his left index and middle fingers, pointing toward a specific direction.
Enkrid and Esther quietly followed his lead.
As they moved along that route, the number of patrol guards dropped drastically.
Rem used his shamanic arts, and Esther silently chanted a spell to mask their presence.
Enkrid simply walked through the darkness with flawless precision.
At one point, a soldier with exceptionally sharp senses glanced suspiciously in their direction, but he failed to spot the three individuals who were utilizing even the shadows cast by the moonlight to mask their movements.
‘Assimilation.’
Enkrid manipulated his Will, melting his body seamlessly into the surrounding foliage and the crisp night air.
He hadn’t specifically trained for moments like this, but his stealth was refined enough to earn begrudging praise even from Jaxen.
It all stemmed from his mastery of Assimilation.
Since Assimilation was one of the fundamental techniques of a knight, he had naturally honed it.
Furthermore, hadn’t he suffered relentlessly at Jaxen’s hands all this time?
Mimicking this level of stealth wasn’t difficult.
And just like that, the three of them slipped entirely out of the Royal Palace.
One of the Royal Guards stationed at the water gate had left it slightly cracked open and conveniently stepped away for a brief moment, ensuring the three were completely unseen.
A Royal Guard abandoning their post at the gate?
Under normal circumstances, it was an offense punishable by death, but tonight, the Commander of the Royal Guard had specifically tasked a few of his most implicitly trusted subordinates to facilitate this exact scenario.
“The night air is quite refreshing, isn’t it?” Rem chuckled quietly, exactly as he always did.
There was zero tension.
All three of them possessed night vision vastly superior to that of an ordinary human.
Evading the night watchmen carrying lanterns was child’s play.
By carefully choosing their path across rooftops and the tops of alleyway walls, not a single person even caught a glimpse of their shadows.
Halfway through, Esther simply abandoned stealth entirely, transformed into a pitch-black leopard, and sprinted across the rooftops.
Having left the Royal Palace, Enkrid, Rem, and Esther eventually arrived before a sprawling mansion.
It was the estate the Duke of the Fertile Lands used whenever he stayed in the capital.
And the person currently residing here was, naturally, the Duke of the Fertile Lands himself.
Just as Enkrid was about to vault over the mansion’s outer wall, Esther, having shifted back from a leopard to a human, spoke up.
“There’s a spell.”
Hearing that, Enkrid narrowed his eyes and closely examined the top of the wall.
‘A line.’
Or rather, a very thin thread.
It was a string painted pitch black.
It was a type of Spell Object.
It was the estate of a high-ranking noble.
This level of defense was entirely expected.
***
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***
If you enjoy the series and want to get more chapters early, head over to https://payhip.com/Samowek
Next 100 chapters – 25e [Be sure to message me on discord for any information]
[SHOP BEST BUY] – 50e – Every chapter translated – Latest WN-1110+ daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 1040-1110 + daily chapters from Monday to Friday for a month
I welcome you to join our discord https://discord.gg/RY7BbJpeAZ
**ANY INFO ONLY APPLIES TO THE LATEST CHAPTER HERE ON WEBNOVEL**