Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 64

Chapter 64
“
Hmm
?”
Wandering the streets at night, Karen suddenly turned around. She couldn’t quite explain it, but she felt someone’s gaze on her.
Her pupils contracted briefly, then widened several times over. Controlling her pupils was as basic as breathing for a first-rate assassin. Her eyesight was already nearly ten times sharper than that of an ordinary person, and with her Aura focused into her eyes, Karen could distinguish the features of a person several kilometers away.
Even so, she couldn’t pinpoint Leon, who was up on the fifth floor of a tavern. She soon dismissed the feeling as her imagination and shifted her gaze away.
“
Ugh, guh
...”
A strangled gasp came from beneath her feet. A rough-looking man had his neck pinned under Karen’s boot. He’d gotten away with thirty robberies until now, but tonight, he’d picked the worst possible target.
The chill running down his spine told him all he needed to know.
I-I’m dead...
the man thought.
His mistake had been judging her by her pretty face. The other thugs he’d brought along were already long dead.
One had his neck twisted multiple times. Another had the dagger he’d swung buried in his own heart. Another had suffocated when his windpipe was crushed with a single knife-hand strike. The corpses scattered like trash only made his terror more vivid.
When that fear pushed his heartbeat to the edge of bursting, Karen’s dry voice sliced into his ear.
“Hey.”
“Y-yes? I-I’ll do anything you say!”
Not even realizing her boot was no longer pressing him down, the bandit groveled with his face pressed to the ground, begging for mercy.
He would’ve gouged out his own eye if she’d ordered him to. The only reason his neck wasn’t already snapped was sheer whim. If he’d hesitated a second longer to answer, he’d be dead.
“Who’s the biggest organization in this city? Not petty thieves like you. Who’s handling smuggling, black-market deals, that sort of thing?”
“T-that’s...!”
If he talked, he would die. If he didn’t, he would still die. The two fears tangled together, making him hesitate for a moment too long. Before he even realized his mistake, Karen moved. Without a sound, a dagger shot out and pinned his hand to the ground.
“
Guuuuuuh
!”
He clamped down on his scream with everything he had, but not because he wanted to—before he could even scream, Karen’s boot crushed down on the back of his head. Only once he quieted down did the boot lift away again.
This time, his mouth didn’t hesitate. Face a bloodied, tear-streaked mess, he spilled everything he knew to Karen’s every question.
“
Hm
, just as I thought. This area is under the Owls.”
Before she was an A-rank adventurer, Karen had been an elite assassin, the Keeper. She knew the underworld’s workings well.
They called themselves the Golden Owl, and they were a syndicate of merchants whose main business was smuggling and black-market trade, mainly operating in border regions of various nations. They moved enormous sums of money, held high social status, and often secured their safety by clinging to the powerful.
“If Margrave Valkas himself is backing them, it’ll be a bit tricky...”
Most nobles ruled their domains like kings, but a Margrave in the borderlands held a special position. They were noble ruling the region furthest from the royal authority.
Margraves held military and judicial powers and could not be punished except for treason. And the tradition of generating slush funds through smuggling and black markets was an old one indeed.
Understanding that brute force wouldn’t work here, Karen decided on her approach, then looked down at the bandit still prostrated at her feet.
Should I kill him?
Her old self wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. It was never good to leave loose ends. For an assassin, the principle was to leave no witnesses alive. There was no more certain way to silence a mouth than death.
However, this time, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She knew it was hypocritical, but as a Hero’s companion now, she didn’t want to be who she used to be.
“
Ghk
?!”
She retrieved her dagger and gave the thug a hard kick with a warning, “Get out of this domain. If I see your face again, you’ll die.”
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
“Now, piss off.”
Blood poured freely from the hole in his hand, but the man didn’t even feel the pain. He turned and fled without looking back. Karen watched him disappear for a moment, then turned in the direction the Owls’ marker pointed.
I haven’t seen this trick in over ten years... still haven’t forgotten it.
Underworld syndicates each had their own ways of arranging meetings. In the Dusk, the group she’d once belonged to, you’d bring an undertaker into their territory and place the fee and an item related to the target inside a coffin.
The
Golden Owl
’s method was simpler. They would hang lanterns that created optical illusions to confuse the entrance and the path. To get through the illusions, one just had to move in the direction opposite the warped light.
Well, Karen was above the little trick, anyway.
“
Ah
, there we go.”
Stepping into the darkness that seemed solid as a wall, the path that had been blocked a moment ago opened wide. No mere illusion could fool someone who commanded the Shadow Aura.
Unlike the shabby building above, a well-kept staircase extended downward. With each step, she felt out hidden traps and passages through subtle vibrations without giving any sign that she noticed.
And then, a voice came.
“Welcome,” greeted an elderly man, immaculately dressed.
Karen widened her eyes at the incongruity of his rigid posture. This was no man you’d expect to find in a back alley. He looked more like a head butler of some noble house.
She had a guess about who he really was, and as if sensing her suspicion, the old man let a subtle smile creep onto his lips and gestured to the seat opposite him.
“Please.”
“Sure.”
Karen didn’t refuse the simple offer.
Sitting across the table from him, the two exchanged a silent stare for a moment. When she laced a hint of killing intent into her eyes to test him, the old man broke a cold sweat but didn’t look away. He had a formidable mind.
Karen blinked once to disperse the killing aura and said, “I want to buy some intel.”
At her words, the old man’s face turned to stone as he asked, “What do you mean, precisely?”
“Rubena Domain.”
Karen kept her answer short, watching his reaction closely. Depending on how he responded, the price of the information would change.
His face was as emotionless as ever, but no one could hide the subtle shifts of pulse and pupils. The senses of an elite assassin caught every flicker, and she smiled faintly.
“Don’t bother trying to hide it—I already know plenty. I was even attacked once, you know.”
“An attack, you say? That’s news to me.”
“You pay the proper price for something you received. That applies to both of us.”
At her loaded words, the old man’s eyes met hers head-on.
The Golden Owl
’
s first principle was money. If someone could pay the right price, they’d find and sell them anything. Information was no exception—not selling was never an option.
With a long sigh, the old man spoke first.
“Eight hundred gold.”
“What if we deduct what
my
information is worth?” Karen countered.
“I can lower it to seven hundred.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Karen waved a hand dismissively, scoffed at the offer, and said, “Why don’t we shave off a bit more, Head Butler?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your disguise is decent, but you’ve still got a mark by your ear. And your left shoulder’s movement is off too. Did you use padding to fake your build? If I really wanted to, I could find plenty more. So, what’ll it be?”
A cold glint flashed in the old man’s eyes. Karen was right, of course.
This man was none other than the Head Butler of Margrave Valkas, one of his most trusted retainers. As a high-ranking member of the Golden Owl, the Head Butler directly oversaw the smuggling and black-market operations in Valkas’ territory.
With his identity suddenly exposed, the man’s voice dropped low.
“You’re quite bold...”
Karen met him with a completely unfazed glare and replied, “So, are you selling or not? You seemed pretty interested in what I brought you, so don’t lowball me like before.”
“
Ugh
.”
Faced with such blatant pressure, the old man couldn’t push back further. As she’d guessed, they needed her intel just as much.
Worse yet, she’d seen through his identity, and she was far too capable to silence easily. An A-rank adventurer couldn’t be taken out easily, not even with a captain of the knight order—and if they failed, the Guild would send investigators for sure.
In the end, the old man, Glenn the Head Butler, chose to break even.
“Two hundred sixty gold. Not a coin less.”
“Deal.”
Karen flicked her fingers and tossed a few gems from the Mole’s stash onto the table as if she’d been waiting for that number. The butler quickly gauged their worth at a glance.
He remarked, “That will suffice.”
Afraid she might ask for change, he hastily gathered up the gems and tucked them inside his coat. Fortunately for him, Karen had no intention of going that far.
Only then did they finally get to the point.
“The Rubena Domain is practically a bottomless pit right now,” Glenn said.
“A bottomless pit?”
“Yes. Whatever goes in never comes back out. It just keeps swallowing things up without spitting anything back out. You can come for a short visit and leave with no problem, but...”
Glenn tapped the tabletop with the tip of his index finger and continued, “We’ve sent nearly twenty people in ourselves. Except for the one who only scouted the outskirts, every single one has vanished. Even a few B-ranks were among them.”
“So there’s a secret inside they can’t let out... is that it?” Karen muttered.
“I’ve narrowed it down to a few pieces of information that might point to an answer. I’ll show you in chronological order.”
He pulled several sheets of parchment from a drawer, shuffled them, then pushed them across to Karen. She fixed her eyes on the first page and began reading.
As she turned the pages, her face grew steadily more rigid, her fingers clenched tighter, and the sound of rustling parchment grew sharper. Halfway through, Karen couldn’t hold back any longer and shot him a question.
“Wait—this says the Black Choker is on the move?”
“Yes.”
Black Chocker was a euphemism for the collar fastened around a slave’s neck and the name of the continent’s largest organization running the slave trade. They were ravens that skulked along the thin line between legal and illegal, bringing prisoners of war for mine labor or smuggling off kidnapped women to sell into brothels.
Despite their vile ways, they survived unpunished thanks to constant demand and the massive size of their organization, keeping only one wary eye on the Holy Church. They were so large that tracking their movements was usually easy—so an operation this quiet was rare.
“The massive slave trading wasn’t enough, so they’re stockpiling a specific mineral too. Suspicious as hell, but it’s hard to see the aim,” Karen muttered her frustration after reading through everything.
Glenn thought otherwise.
“No, if you find the overlap, a single keyword appears.”
The Golden Owl had discussed the Rubena anomaly at length, and they had narrowed down their most credible theory yet. This transaction was also their chance to confirm it.
Glenn, the Head Butler to the Margrave, finally spoke.
“That keyword is—”
***
Whether by coincidence or fate, while Karen and Glenn were having their secret deal, Leon was talking about the very same thing: the Rubena Domain.
It wasn’t just merchants who sniffed out rumors. Mercenaries—who had to risk their lives all the time for work—always had an ear to the ground. Leon, tipsy after downing several bottles, snapped back to sobriety the moment their next destination came up.
However, what he heard was absurd.
“What? Vampires?” he asked.
Leonik answered, “Yeah, blood-sucking monsters! There’s talk that they’re hiding out in Rubena, ruling the nights. That’s why hardly anyone walks the streets after dark, and even mercenaries steer clear.”
“Leonik! Knock it off with the crap! It’s not like vampires are some stray dogs you can find in the streets!” Hansen barked at Leonik, then downed his mug of ale in one go.
His scolding wasn’t entirely wrong either. Vampires were intelligent like humans, gifted in magic, and virtually immortal. Each one rivaled a mid-to-high-tier monster.
Coexistence with humans was theoretically possible, but their threat level made them too dangerous. They were a species in an awkward place. The Holy Church hadn’t declared them to be hunted to extinction, but no domain openly tolerated their presence either.
Vampires, huh.
Turning his back on the pair’s rough argument, Leon pondered the vampires he’d yet to meet.
Humanoid in appearance, immortal in nature. Needing the blood of sentient beings, wielding immense power.
Should he, as a Hero, drive them out, or try to talk first? He’d even asked El-Cid once, but the answer hadn’t helped much.
—There weren’t many left in my time. The strong ones sided with the Demon King’s army and I killed them all myself... I’ve never seen the kind of ‘ordinary vampire’ you’re thinking of.
No one really knew if coexistence with humans was possible. Still, Leon thought it was worth finding out. A Hero’s duty was to cut down evil, but deciding what was truly evil was up to him alone. Vampires would stay on hold, for now.
Before he could settle the thought, several presences drew near, unfamiliar and far from friendly. They exuded unpleasant, hostile auras.
A mercenary brimming with raw force strode into the room and shouted, “Hey, Gustav! Did you guys buy out the whole fifth floor, or something?”
It was a man whose face bore a cross-shaped scar. His whole presence screamed veteran brawler.
Seeing the man, Gustav set down his mug and stood. The moment the two big men faced off, the air inside the room grew suffocating.
“It’s a good evening, Jerome. Let’s not make trouble.”
“Still acting all high and mighty! I’m not one of your underlings, so why are you ordering me around?”
“If that’s how it sounded, let me try again. Please—just leave.”
Despite Gustav’s polite tone, Jerome let out a nasty laugh and spat on the polished floor. Yellow phlegm clung to the clean boards.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then, step outside,” Gustav growled, gripping the greatsword propped against the wall. “You may have walked in here on your own two feet, but I’ll make sure you crawl out.”