Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 48

Chapter 48
Prima District, Thirteenth Street was different from the slums. It was a place where people could live without straying from the bounds of the law.
Buildings without owners were abundant, giving the homeless a place to stay, and people could earn just enough money to survive because of the availability of odd jobs. This was all thanks to none other than the Holy Church. Because nobles and caravans didn’t want to fall out of the Church’s favor, relief supplies—while not plentiful—were at least steadily provided.
With the basics of food, clothing, and shelter guaranteed, people stopped coveting or stealing from one another. That alone made this place fundamentally different from the slums, where survival of the fittest and the law of the jungle reigned supreme.
“Take one more, will you? You said you’ve got three kids, right?” said the man handing out the rations.
“
O-oh
! Thank you so much!”
A man from District Twenty-Three lowered his head, moved to tears by the unexpected kindness while the distributor just waved it off.
“It’s not like I brought them myself. If you really want to show thanks, go into that building over there and offer a prayer to the Goddess. Without the Church here, none of us would even dream of this kind of comfort.”
The poor knew it well. In a city where no one else would come, the Church stood alone at its center as an irreplaceable savior.
They no longer had to starve their children from lack of food or shiver through the cold for lack of clothes. Even the absence of thugs or thieves in these streets was thanks to Caesare, who patrolled daily.
Though slower than evil, goodness too spread among people. Those who had once bristled with hostility began to open their hearts to others and learned to share.
“Things here really are different from Twenty-Three...”
Though the man had received an extra sack of food for having many children, no one grumbled or followed him in resentment. This was nothing like the slums, where the others would tear you apart for your possessions the moment you let your guard down.
Naturally, his gaze drifted in a certain direction. He recalled what the person handing out food had said.
“Guess I’ll go take a look,” he muttered.
The Holy Church, the very group that had utterly destroyed District Twenty-Five just a few days ago, wasn’t that far away Because of the aftermath of that raid, Districts Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four had become uninhabitable, forcing the man and his family to flee here, to Prima. He’d expected difficult days ahead but never imagined life would turn out like this.
“
Huh
?”
It was just as the Church came into view and the symbol of the Goddess entered his vision that he stopped in his tracks. A familiar sound rang out—one he’d heard countless times in the slums.
Clashing of blades echoed far, showing its sheer force. The man, trained by experience, froze in fear.
“Wow, they’re at it again all day,
huh
?”
“Right? I used to think adventurers just loafed around, but they’ve changed my mind.”
“Guess if you’re going to live by the sword, that’s what it takes.”
Strangely, the people passing by were unfazed. There was a swordfight happening, yet they were acting like it was nothing? The man’s expression turned perplexed at the incomprehensible sight.
Unable to help himself, he asked one of the passersby what was going on.
“
Oh,
that sound? You must be new around here. Don’t worry about it. Apparently, it’s just the adventurers staying with the Church, training. It’s been about a week, and they’ve been going at it every day.”
The answer was much simpler than expected. With his worries eased, the man hesitated briefly, then turned to walk home. Even knowing it was safe, he couldn’t bring himself to approach the source of that sound just yet. It was a reflex, worn into him over years—maybe more than a decade.
Someday, he hoped to be able to stand before that building and offer thanks. The man walked on, tightening his grip on the sack of flour in his arms with the hopes of being able to stand before that building to offer his thanks.
***
With a loud clang, Leon was blown back in a single exchange, but he swiftly regained his stance. His ankles throbbed from the rough landing, but he didn’t have time to show it.
A single opening—no matter how small—was all a top-class assassin needed to bring someone down, even if they were of an equal level. Thankfully, he had used Rodrick’s Footwork to prepare for a counterattack, which made Karen pause instead of pursuing.
“You’ve got good footwork. You’re more like me than a knight,” Karen remarked, her vacant eyes sweeping over Leon’s feet.
It was a style that didn’t stick to strict forms but adapted to the situation and environment. Knights trained for duels and war couldn’t respond that flexibly. Whether in mud or on ice, assassins, rangers, and others who had to perform in any environment moved that way.
“In terms of technique, you might actually have the edge, but...”
Karen’s body began to lower. Both knees bent as her torso tilted forward, resembling a taut bowstring about to fire.
And indeed, she launched forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, and before she could finish her sentence, her body blurred.
“...I still see a bunch of openings!”
In just two steps, she left only afterimages. Despite that speed, there wasn’t a single trace on the ground—she was like a ghost that vanished in a blink.
So Leon didn’t blink even once. Even with his dynamic eyesight enhanced with Rodrick’s Vision, he could just barely keep up.
Left.
Sensing a slight disturbance in the afterimage, Leon stepped back with his right foot. At the same moment, his sword collided with the dagger Karen thrust forward, erupting in a violent spray of sparks.
He retreated three steps as he felt his grip tearing open. Sword and dagger—despite the mass difference between weapons, he was completely overpowered. Even though his weight class was higher, he was pushed back without difficulty.
While Karen had focused all her force into a single point for a focused breakthrough, Leon had tried to deflect it along a line. This outcome was inevitable.
She really is on a different level...
It wasn’t that his response was wrong. It was just that Karen had pushed past the limits of Rodrick’s Vision in just two simple steps.
Her mastery over weight distribution and momentum was far superior, and her dagger skills were frighteningly precise. Not just in throwing—her stabs packed enough power to rip through metal plates without even using Aura.
“What? You can follow my speed?” Karen, too, was surprised. “You’re tracking me with pure eyesight? Not even focusing Aura into your eyes?”
No matter how much one trained, the human body had limits. And among all the senses, the eyes—especially motion tracking—were the hardest to train.
In a world where an inch meant life or death, eyesight was everything. If he could follow Karen’s movements, who boasted top-tier speed among A-ranks, then it was practically superhuman.
“Sure, I barely used Aura, but I wasn’t exactly holding back...”
Karen paused in thought and then her eyes gleamed. She clearly had a sneaky idea. Something mischievous. Something dangerous.
“Alright, then. Shall we see just how much you can follow?”
Karen’s already silent footsteps blurred even more. It wasn’t just speed. Her footwork employed deception and misdirection to trick the human eye, a technique honed through decades of assassin training.
“Mirage,” as she named the skill, Karen’s figure distorted. Like a heat shimmer in the desert, her form became unclear and flickering.
It was different from a simple clone technique. She hadn’t split into multiple bodies. Instead, one body appeared as many. Even Leon couldn’t see through it right away—it was a highly advanced illusion.
“Here I come,
hehe
.”
With that, Karen lunged. She was slightly slower than before, but the visual disorientation was the problem. Direction, distance—nothing was clear. Was she coming from left or right, and was her arm extended or drawn back?
Leon’s eyes darted wildly in every direction but to no avail.
Ugh...
The muscles around his eyes cramped from the sudden strain. Squinting through the pain, Leon raised his sword.
He swung, but this time, the blade sliced through empty air. Sensing his failure, Leon let out a long sigh and turned to the side.
Sure enough—
“This makes it a hundred and two wins out of a hundred and two, yeah?”
Karen smiled playfully as she held a dagger to the back of his neck. In a real fight, that missed swing would’ve meant instant death.
Leon raised both hands with a bitter smile and said, “Is it that fun bullying a junior who hasn’t even hit B-rank?”
“
Teehee
. Of course, it is,” Karen grinned, fully aware of who Leon really was.
They had already gone through over a hundred bouts. While it was a great idea to learn from a top-class assassin, the gap between them was irrefutably massive. Their talents, aptitudes, and training backgrounds couldn’t have been more different.
So they settled on this format for training: Aura use limited to physical enhancement, no throwing, and an open field.
All conditions favored Leon.
Even a rookie mercenary would know which had the advantage in a direct clash between a sword and daggers. With no cover or obstacles in the field, and Karen banned from throwing attacks, she had to charge across double or triple the range while being disadvantaged.
Against someone of the same level, she’d lose. Against someone even one level below her, she’d still lose. Only against someone two or more levels below would it become an even fight.
And yet, I haven’t won once.
Leon accepted that reality. He’d overestimated himself after fighting well against the exolaw wielders, but the gap between him and Karen was simply overwhelming.
Sure, he wasn’t using full power, but neither was she. If Karen were fighting seriously without any handicaps, she could probably kill him within thirty seconds.
After catching his breath, Leon asked carefully, “So, what do you think?”
It wasn’t enough to just fight. He had a high-level fighter willingly helping him—he had to learn from her. Their paths were different, but Karen was without a doubt a master.
“You’re doing fine,” Karen said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Karen looked him in the eye as she explained, “If you can keep up with
my
acceleration, even top-tier assassins won’t be able to use visual tricks on you. You didn’t show any openings after the initial exchange either. You’re already past what most B-ranks can do.”
“Even though I can’t manifest my Aura yet?”
“Aura Weapons are powerful, sure. But they’re meaningless if they don’t hit. Your eyes and footwork are good enough to dodge them.”
Aura weapons could tear through steel and smash stone, but they couldn’t chase dodging enemies on their own. Karen knew that better than anyone.
Most assassins were behind in raw combat strength compared to their peers. They won by exploiting openings and using underhanded tactics.
At the end of the day, a win was still a win. Back in the day, Karen had toppled many targets using those same methods.
“If I had to point out a flaw, though...” she started as she thought back to their last duel. “Your fundamentals are rock-solid and your eyes are sharp. But here’s the thing. You don’t fall for tricks, sure, but you don’t have any yourself either. That means once you’re on the back foot, it’s hard for you to turn things around.”
“Tricks,
huh
...”
“Don’t overthink it. Deception is just a tool to close the gap. It lays the groundwork for a comeback.”
And that was exactly what Leon lacked.
“I don’t know who taught you, but they must’ve been either an outrageous genius or an outright monster.”
Karen had never met his teacher, but she said it with conviction. And she was right—this was all because El-Cid had been his master.
What Karen had pointed out stemmed from a fundamental lack of skill. The truly strong, on the other hand, didn’t need tricks. They won head-on, without resorting to feints.
That was El-Cid,
the
Holy King Rodrick when he lived. However, Leon wasn’t him. He wasn’t the strongest in the world. He had to find his own answers.
“In short, you need more creativity in your attacks and movement. You don’t need to copy me, but you should at least have more options in your hand.”
Unless one had a guaranteed winning hand, the best thing to do was increase variety and strengthen plays. Leon took her advice to heart and thought for a moment. Something was coming to mind.
Karen watched him quietly before clapping her hands and saying, “Alright, that’s enough dueling for today. Let’s move on.”
“Alright.”
They moved from the training field into the building. The next part didn’t require physical movement, but it was the next step in Leon’s path to officially becoming B-rank.
Training for Aura manifestation, also known as Aura Weapon.
“Where did we leave off last time?” Karen asked.
“The relationship between Aura’s attribute and training methods.”
“Oh, right. That’s where we were. I remember now.”
Karen sat across the table and began the next lesson.