Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 34

Chapter 34
That night, Leon moved quickly after securing Caesare as an ally. There was no point in wasting time—he didn’t have extra forces to muster, and delay would only lead to more victims.
Most of all, the fact that he’d visited the Holy Church was the pressing concern. If the enemy dismissed it as nothing, fine—but if they overreacted, they might accelerate whatever catastrophe was coming. That’s how awe-inspiring the Church’s firepower was.
“Have you been waiting long?” asked Caesare, having arrived outside the abandoned mansion.
He wore a suspicious-looking robe pulled low over his head. A priest couldn’t exactly walk into a den of criminals in ceremonial garb, so this disguise was necessary. Besides, even in Blaine, elves were rare, making him an easy target for unwanted attention.
Of course, there was no chance Caesare would actually get hurt, but even being noticed could complicate things. Stealth was the better option here.
“Not at all. Let’s go,” Leon answered.
“Yes, brother Leon.”
The two stepped into the slums with confident steps. Leon walked several paces ahead, and Caesare kept a small distance behind as if they weren’t together. In any other circumstance, the black robe would have made him look suspicious, but that was normal attire in the slums.
Soon, Leon felt something off. His Aura Sense still picked up Caesare’s presence, but none of his other senses did.
El-Cid answered his unspoken question, —It’s a type of Aura skill. It’s a technique that uses Aura to suppress one’s presence. It’s not easy to do while moving, but he’s quite skilled. He’s probably got a lot of experience with infiltration missions.
How come I can still sense him with my Aura Sense?
—That’s because of your Aura’s attribute.
The gap in ability between Leon and Caesare was significant. Normally, someone like him wouldn’t even detect a trace—but Aura attributes could override even that difference.
Caesare’s Aura was reacting to the highest tier attribute, the sun Aura.
—I suspected it when he used Aura Fire, but this confirms it. That elf’s Aura attribute is Moon.
Leon’s eyes widened as he thought,
Moon...? Never heard of it.
While not as well-known as Sun, Moon was still a top-tier Aura, and just as rare, though it hadn’t gained as much renown as the sun.
El-Cid had more to say.
—Moon-type Aura strengthens in the presence of Sun-type Aura. Its typically calm and subdued nature gets a bit more aggressive. That’s why you can sense him. He reacted to your Sun Aura, which weakened his concealment.
Ah, I see.
It made sense that the two powers that have influence on each other would reveal each other’s location. Sun and Moon were both rare Aura attributes, but they somehow gathered in a place like this.
Was it chance? Or was it destiny? With that thought, Leon kept walking.
Before long, the alleyways grew darker and more isolated. The noise of the crowd faded, drunks changed course, and they neared the domain of the Bastards, a gang-run sector built on violence.
Leon’s skin prickled from the wave of hostility.
That is one hell of a welcome...
He sensed Caesare closing the distance behind him as they entered a dimly lit alley. Judging by the shattered windows and the stench of alcohol and blood, it was clearly a dangerous place.
And then, a one-eyed thug stepped out and blocked their path.
“Hey. Who said you could use this road? This is Mad Dog turf. Even if it’s your first time here, rules are rules. You’ll have to pay a toll.”
“A toll?” Leon asked, taken aback.
“You heard me! One gold should do. But don’t worry if you’re short—we’ll take everything you’ve got and let you walk away in one piece.”
Leon was too dumbfounded to respond. “Mad Dog”? He’d never even heard of them. Either the guy made it up to sound tough, or they were a complete no-name group.
And punks like this never worked alone. Sure enough, when Leon expanded his Aura Sense, he found around ten more thugs hiding in the alley.
“Brother Leon, shall I handle this?” Caesare asked.
“No, it’s fine,” Leon replied and stopped Caesare as he stepped forward.
If it came to violence, Leon could handle it alone. Fighting these thugs himself was better than splattering minced meat across the pavement.
When Leon casually pulled a dagger from his coat, the one-eyed thug screamed, “What’s that? You think you can take us?!”
The rest of his crew rushed out with clubs, axes, and machetes, and surrounded them. They looked threatening, but their level was pathetic. Not a single one of them could use Aura.
Leon could wipe them out in ten seconds—but he didn’t want to. Instead, he said, “Look,” and tossed the dagger to the thug, who caught it with a confused look.
The thug’s face went pale the moment he came to a critical realization.
“B-B-B-B-B—!”
The man trembled like he was having a seizure, then threw himself to the ground and slammed his forehead into the dirt.
“I didn’t know you were from the Bastards! Please, spare me!”
What an astonishingly fast turnaround. Apparently, the one-eyed thug had been their leader. As soon as he surrendered, the rest of his gang threw themselves to the ground, heads lowered, begging for their lives.
Leon was speechless at the absurd sight, but in the slums, where a single mistake could cost your life, this level of desperation was normal. The more cunning ones would go as far as to cut off a finger or gouge out their own eyes to beg for mercy.
“Be quiet. Just get up, all of you,” Leon said.
The one-eyed thug shot to his feet and answered promptly, “Y-yes, sir!”
“If I keep going this way, it leads to District Twenty-Three, right?”
“P-precisely, sir! But in District Twenty-Three—”
“I already know what’s there. Just grab the other idiots and get lost. If I see you again, I won’t be so kind.”
“
Eek
! Understood, sir!”
Not waiting for a second warning, the thugs scrambled away like rats. Judging by their speed only, they might as well have been apprentice knights.
Leon resumed his advance. After walking a few more minutes, he posed a lingering question to Caesare.
“Bishop Caesare, did I make the right choice?”
Honestly, he could’ve just killed them all. Avoiding bloodshed was generally ideal but wiping out a few thugs wouldn’t have caused much trouble.
Still, Leon had chosen caution—just in case his actions had larger consequences. But what if those thugs later robbed and killed someone? Wouldn’t that be his fault? The nagging conflict wouldn’t leave his mind.
“Of course, Brother Leon,” Caesare replied without hesitation as if reading his thoughts. Like a true bishop, he began a gentle sermon.
“Even if I had intervened, the result would’ve been the same. The Church does not label such men as ‘enemies’ as they can still be reformed. And besides, their sins are not solely their own. Our true enemy is the world that turned them into what they are.”
“You mean like this slum...?” Leon asked.
“Precisely. Poverty and ignorance breed evil. Had they grown up in a nurturing environment, given proper guidance, they might’ve become people capable of showing others kindness.”
“However,” Caesare continued, “There are sins that cannot be forgiven. Like those we are going to face—heretics who mock life itself and feel no gratitude for the Goddess’s mercy.”
Leon shuddered as he listened in silence. Caesare’s voice held no trace of agitation. Like the stillness before a storm, he was conserving even the strength that would be put into emotional turbulence for the battle to come.
Even when speaking kindly with a gentle face, the Holy Iron Inquisitor, the unshakable hammer of faith, remained beneath.
“We’re entering district twenty-three,” Leon whispered as he consulted the map.
From here on out, they were in enemy territory.
Caesare looked between the crimson-stained walls and ground, offering a brief moment of silence for the carnage. The earth, where over five hundred mercenaries had perished, had yet to sprout a single blade of grass.
No lights had been restored—only darkness remained. The two slipped in without a sound.
Not above ground. We should take the shortcut Khan told me about.
Activating Rodrick’s Footwork, Leon erased all sound. Caesare blinked in surprise at the silence for a moment, then followed suit, matching Leon’s stealth.
Dilapidated buildings lined the street, completely neglected. Leon picked one with eight shattered windows and a spear stuck through the roof. He vaulted over the wall.
“Where are we?” Caesare asked.
“This is the path prepared by the Fang. He dug out the basement to create a shortcut.”
“He sounds a bit too sharp-witted for a thug...” Caesare said with a wry smile as he stepped in.
He must have sensed Khan’s threat too. No mere thug could command other ruffians, who have no formal discipline, like he. Khan wielded overwhelming strength and possessed such a cunning mind. Once Evil was purged, no one would be left to stop that man.
Nevertheless, for now, they needed his shortcut. Leon and Caesare squeezed through a narrow opening, crawling for several minutes. Anyone less fit would’ve cramped up before reaching halfway.
“
Shh
.”
Caesare suddenly halted and looked up. Something was making noise above them. He raised two fingers and jabbed them toward the ceiling, and what should have been solid bedrock gave way like tofu.
From the hole came voices. Not just one—two, no, three. At least three people were speaking above their heads.
“Is that it for today?”
“Yeah. That damn wench resisted, so we didn’t hit our quota. We still had twelve more to go.”
“Honestly, seventy a day is too much. Even if we start the rituals at dawn, we don’t finish until well into the night.”
“Guess all the grunt work falls to us. Assholes.”
Leon’s eyes blazed. His Sun Aura already stirred a natural sense of justice, and hearing such filth made it nearly impossible to hold back.
Seventy a day? And they’d been doing this for three whole months?
Leon thought, seething.
Even a full-scale territorial war wouldn’t yield that many casualties. Yet these monsters spoke casually of their massacre—as if it were routine. No human could say such things. No, they shouldn’t.
You will die here. Right now.
The rage Leon was feeling was so intense it could burn away reason. The blood flowing throughout his body felt as hot as lava. Even El-Cid didn’t stop him. Though he was but a fragment of a soul, he too had once been a Hero. He had faced situations like this countless times.
Evil must be vanquished and sin must be punished. Following that creed, Leon raised his sword toward the ceiling. However—
“Brother Leon, allow me to go first.”
Caesar was a step ahead of Leon, and in hindsight, it was only natural. A former holy knight of the Holy Iron Inquisitors, once a scourge of heretics, would never sit idle in the face of such evil.
It took only one move. Caesare shattered the ground with a single punch and leaped toward the enemy. His body was wreathed in blue Aura—he had entered full combat mode long ago.
No words were needed. A holy knight who defined someone as an “enemy” would not negotiate, would not speak, and would not forgive.
They fought only to erase the existence of their foes. There was a reason every villain on the continent feared the Holy Church and fled at the mere mention of its name.
Caesare’s eyes were like glass beads. About to act as an agent of divine judgment, not even a bit of personal feelings remained.
“W-what the?! Who are you?!” one of the evil men asked.
Caesare reached out without answering, swinging his hand at the man closest to him. His arm shot forward faster than the eye could see, tearing through the man’s cervical spine and separating his head from his shoulders in one blow.
When Leon also made his way up, the first thing he saw was this brutal strike.
Only then did the others grasp the situation.
“Klein!” one screamed the name of their now-decapitated comrade while another turned toward Leon.
Caesare was the one to move before anyone else. He kicked the fallen head at the man who called the name, then lunged in half a beat later to exploit the opening. Leon and the third enemy moved at nearly the same time.
I strike first!
Leon thought.
In theory, defenders held the advantage in combat, but theory was theory. Giving time to an opponent who might not even be trained in martial arts would’ve been far more foolish. Leon shot forward like a bolt of lightning and thrust his sword.
“You lowly mongrel!”
The man spat in disdain and exhaled a pale gray mist. It cloaked his body like armor—clearly no ordinary technique. It wasn’t magic, nor was it sorcery.
It was a law from another dimension—a fragment of power stolen through the worship of transcendent beings. Against this exolaw, pure physical force was ineffective, and even Aura and magic techniques had poor affinity against it. Only divine arts could overwhelm the alien law.
And of course, the Holy Sword El-Cid was the ultimate weapon of the divine.
“Wha...?” Leon muttered in shock.
And so did the enemy, “
Ggh
?!”
Both the stabber and stabbed were stunned—one for having pierced through the gray mist in a single strike, the other for realizing the power he trusted was meaningless.
There was only one sword that could deny the exolaw entirely.
“Y-you... a Hero...?”
He couldn’t even finish his sentence. His lips, parted mid-word, exhaled their final breath.
The man’s eyes widened in recognition, but the body impaled on the Holy Sword crumpled instantly. It was an anticlimactic end for Leon’s first battle against Evil.
After felling his opponent, Leon turned around. There stood Caesare, holding the last enemy up by the throat.
“
G-guh,
s-s-spare me...”
Caesare replied to the plea with a light squeeze followed by a crack. The man’s spine shattered, his body collapsing like garbage.
The grip was so tight that the indents from Caesare’s fingers remained vivid on his neck. It looked more like crushed clay than a human body.
Caesare, having destroyed two wielders of exolaw, turned toward Leon and asked, “Oh, Brother Leon! You’ve finished yours already?”
“That’s what I should be saying to you, Bishop Caesare...?”
“Well, when you’re in the fighting business for as long as I’ve been, you pick up a trick or two.”
Leon chuckled bitterly as he looked over the carnage. One had been beheaded with a single strike of Caesare’s hand, the other crushed by raw strength—what tricks was he talking about?
He hadn’t even given the exolawed a chance to use their power. The battle ended in less than ten seconds.
Their plan to infiltrate and gather intel had been thoroughly ruined, but confirming the enemy’s nature was a worthwhile gain. There were few proofs more definitive than the exolaw.
“Bishop Caesare, let’s go a bit deeper.”
“Yes, Brother Leon. I was just about to suggest the same.”
Caesare nodded immediately at Leon’s suggestion. Even if he had retired from the Holy Iron Inquisitors, his core remained unchanged. Wielders of exolaw were unforgivable targets.
Their footsteps vanished once again. A kill was an assassination as long as there were no witnesses left. Following a similar logic, a break-in would be an infiltration if they killed them all. With their murderous intent hidden deep inside, the two men melted back into the shadows.