Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 66

Chapter 66
Despite his serious wounds, Gustav dragged himself over to Leon and demanded an explanation.
“Leon, what the hell just happened here...?”
Leon was about to tell him everything, but seeing Gustav’s half-glazed eyes, he changed his mind. If he rambled a full explanation, Gustav would pass out halfway through for sure. Right now, it was more important to get things under control.
“They’re vampires,” Leon said, getting straight to the point.
“What?!”
The reflexive shout made Gustav’s wounds split open again. Blood and pain alike must have been intense, but he listened with grim resolve. He trusted Leon enough to know he wouldn’t spout nonsense.
The other mercenaries of Steel Claw felt the same. They surrounded the Wolf Fang mercenaries, binding them and patching Gustav’s wounds while hanging on Leon’s words.
“You all saw how they reacted to my Aura. There’s only one race that reacts that violently to the Sun-type Aura.”
“But still—vampires?” Gustav asked, still in disbelief.
“Did you hear what Hamel said earlier? Jerome was always weaker than you, but tonight he picked a fight head-on—that was strange. And the power he showed matched that of an A-ranker. How does a guy who was below you suddenly match an A-rank out of nowhere? Pretty suspicious, right?”
Of course, Leon hadn’t figured this out himself—he’d just followed El-Cid’s advice. Regardless, to everyone listening, it made perfect sense.
Mercenaries didn’t just jump ranks overnight. They weren’t born noble or trained in luxury, so they clawed their way up through years of brutal experience and constant training. Jerome’s sudden leap in power was unnatural—some might’ve even called it absurd.
Half his torso now wrapped in fresh bandages, Gustav spoke up.
“I see. In that case, there’s something I noticed too. During the fight, his eyes glowed red for a moment. I thought it was just my imagination—but I guess it wasn’t.”
That testimony sealed it. Leon’s reasoning, the signs they’d seen, and now the captain’s own account—no doubt remained.
Hansen nudged the fallen Wolf Fang mercenary at his feet with his boot and asked, “Leon, what do we do with these bastards?”
“To be sure, we need confessions first. How about we move them somewhere else and tie them up tight?”
“There’s a spare storehouse we’re not using. Let’s haul them there.”
That was the last word they needed. Steel Claw moved fast to scatter the murmuring crowd, secured Jerome and his men, and carried them off bound and gagged.
The spare storehouse wasn’t far. Just five minutes on foot from the Song of the Mountain Goat tavern, it was an old stone building in a deserted spot. Leon’s group threw the Wolf Fang in there and finally took a breather.
It wasn’t just Jerome—his whole company had turned into Dhampirs. There was no way this could be seen as just an individual acting out on a whim.
“God... what the hell have you done to yourselves...”
Gustav looked down at Jerome’s group bound to chairs with a heavy expression. They might not have been friends, but they’d worked the same jobs for years.
Even with a nickname like Scavenger, Jerome’s skills were genuinely top-tier B-rank. When they occasionally took the same jobs, they grumbled and swore plenty, but they’d also covered each other’s backs.
Leon watched Gustav’s face and thought,
El-Cid, tell me everything you know about Dhampirs.
—Sure.
El-Cid sounded like he’d been waiting for that.
—A Dhampir is someone who has drunk a concoction made with vampire blood. Like I said—weak in daylight, stronger at night. Not as powerful as true vampires, but they do heal faster, burn if they touch silver, that kind of thing. They don’t have fangs like real bloodsuckers, and they can’t use dark magic either. They’re basically half-baked hybrids.
So when you said ‘half-bloods,’ you weren’t kidding.
—Nope. Still, they’re tricky to deal with at night. You only handled them so easily because you’ve got the Holy Sword and the Sun Aura.
He wasn’t wrong. Even Gustav, who was near the top of B-rank, had been cornered to the brink once Jerome showed his true colors. A Dhampir didn’t just get a boost to their strength at night—their Aura’s density and control did as well. If Leon had fought him head-to-head on skill alone, he probably wouldn’t have lasted three minutes.
“
Ugh
...”
At that moment, Jerome, strapped to a chair, blinked his eyes open. The holy light’s burn had clearly been agony since his face was still twisted in pain.
He looked around for a second, then registering the situation, he bared his teeth and snarled at Steel Claw one by one.
“You bastards! What the hell is this?! Let me and my men go right now! This is a violation of the rules!”
“Violation, my ass.”
Hamel let out a snort and stepped forward. Then, he cracked Jerome right in the jaw with no strength held back. Jerome’s lips split wide, blood spattering down his chin.
Only Leon flinched at the blow while the rest of the mercenaries just stared at Jerome, eyes cold and dead. This was a man who’d hidden what he was and tried to pick a fight—clearly with evil intentions. No one felt sorry for him now.
From the back, Leonik spoke in a flat voice.
“You sons of bitches really do bark like dogs. I always thought you sounded more animal than man—turns out you really weren’t human after all.”
“What the hell are you babbling about?” Jerome snarked.
“Don’t bother denying it. Your cover’s blown.”
Gustav, who’d been silent, stepped in with a question.
“When did you stop being human, Jerome?”
Jerome froze for a moment and then barked out, “Shut the hell up with that nonsense!”
“Nonsense,
huh
.”
Gustav and the others turned to Leon. Understanding the signal, Leon raised his sword. The memory of what happened before flashed through Jerome’s eyes.
As his face twisted in sudden panic, a beam of light flared from the blade’s edge, touching his thigh. It wasn’t a blast for everyone this time, but a tight ray aimed at one man. To an ordinary person, it would feel like nothing but gentle sunlight, but to a dhampir...
“
Aaaargh
!”
It was raw agony, burning him from the inside out. If he’d been a pureblood vampire, he’d have been vaporized on the spot. Fortunately for Jerome, dhampirs weren’t human or vampire—half-baked, half-ruined. The pain just dragged on without killing him outright.
The searing beam finally faded. Jerome’s eyes glowed red as he gasped for breath, chest heaving.
“
Haah
...!
Haah
...! This... this is...”
Leonik said, “You get it now? You can’t hide anything in front of our boy here. Even if you keep your mouth shut, you’re going to the Holy Iron Inquisitors next.”
“Wha—!”
Vampires were already an uneasy issue—but that unease vanished the moment they stepped into humanity’s realm.
If it came out that they had turned Jerome’s crew into dhampirs and spread their influence, the Holy Iron Inquisitors would be on the entire vampire race in a heartbeat. The sacred spells, blessed by the Goddess of Sun and Moon, was the one thing vampires feared more than sunlight itself.
Jerome’s eyes bulged with horror as he said, “Bullshit! The Inquisitors won’t come for something this small—!”
“Oh really? We’ll see.”
Leon lifted the relic at his neck and let its soft, holy glow spill out.
A seasoned mercenary like Jerome knew immediately what it was and went pale, trembling in his chair. B-rank or not, if the Holy Iron Inquisitors marked him, it was over.
Reading that terror, Gustav leaned in with an icy voice.
“Spill everything now, or you can scream it out under torture in an interrogation cell later. Your choice, Jerome.”
“......”
“You’ll still get punished by the Guild either way—but maybe you and your boys keep your heads on your shoulders.”
Corner him, then give him a sliver of mercy. It was an old trick, but very effective when there was no other way out.
Finally, Jerome’s shoulders slumped. There was no secret worth dying for.
“It happened about six months ago...”
And so, the real interrogation began.
***
Jerome’s interrogation dragged on until dawn. Why, when, how, and who—all for a handful of answers.
“This is way harder than I thought.”
Leonik grumbled, worn out by the whole ordeal. He’d never interrogated anyone before and had never gotten any real training in it either.
If they’d just needed a simple confession, it would have been easy, but Jerome’s mind was bound by a secrecy contract. There were things he could say, and things he physically couldn’t. It was a trick that nobility often used when commissioning jobs that they couldn’t afford to be traced back to them, like Black Quests.
Leon didn’t have any magic fix for that either.
El-Cid explained, — On top of that, the binding on this bastard is stronger than usual. It’s not just sealing his mouth. It’s tied directly to his dhampir body. The vampire who gave him blood probably cast it himself.
Can’t you break it with your power?
—I could break it, sure—but the second I do, his heart stops. He’ll be dead before he says a word.
It was a truly vicious safeguard. It was understandable to stop them from spilling the secret themselves, but it seemed a little harsh that they would die if anyone forced it out of them.
Even so, they’d managed to squeeze a little out of him.
“So it’s the Rubena County...” Gustav muttered darkly, a shadow crossing his face.
Rubena was the next destination of the Storm Caravan, a territory surrounded by steep, unforgiving mountains. Of course, the Steel Claw mercenaries would have to accompany them.
After entering, there was no getting out except back through the front gates. And if Jerome was telling the truth, they wouldn’t be left alone.
The mercenaries discussed among themselves.
“Looks like Count Rubena used Black Quests to lure in mercenaries and adventurers, then turned them into his pawns. I don’t know why the Count would go so far to build up power though.”
“Yeah. That’s the kind of thing that could bring a charge of treason. If the Church decided to stick its nose in, he’d be ruined overnight.”
Mercenaries knew the moves of the powerful better than anyone—more than even most adventurers. A mercenary who only had brute strength would never rise above C-rank. Knowing which side to back, where to stand to survive—that insight was their true weapon.
Leon wrapped up the main points and asked Gustav, “What about Jerome and the Wolf Fang? If we hand them over to the Guild, how will they be punished?”
“Being dhampir alone isn’t a big crime. But fighting while hiding it—not ing it to the Guild—now that’s a different story. By the rules, they’ll get at least ten years of forced labor.”
“Ten years...”
It was a long time—or a short one, depending on how one looked at it. If Jerome had caused a major problem after becoming a dhampir, it might have been a different story, but he had failed to finish Gustav and been captured immediately. Plus, Jerome had confessed, even if half-forced. That would be enough to earn him a lighter sentence.
Once they’d squeezed out everything useful, Gustav had them dragged off to the Guild for transport. It would have been ideal to rest until his wounds healed, but there was work left to do.
Leon fell in step beside him and asked, “Are you going to tell Mr. Arnold?”
“Yes. This isn’t something we can overlook. It’s a shame we don’t have solid physical proof, but Arnold will make the right call. And we’ll need more info on Rubena’s current situation.”
“I agree.”
Leon nodded at that, but deep down, he knew the caravan wouldn’t stop. He remembered what Arnold had told him.
“A rather rare gemstone. These were first-grade, with no impurities—worth nearly a thousand gold coins each. They were specifically requested by the lord of Rubena, the next city on our route.”
A gem worth a thousand gold coins—directly ordered by Count Rubena. If the caravan leader didn’t deliver it himself, it would be a huge problem. Turning back wasn’t an option.
Thinking that far, Leon unconsciously touched the pendant at his neck. It might become necessary sooner than he had expected.
Rubena and Valkas were big cities—well within the Church’s reach. If they brought in even a few Holy Iron Inquisitors, vampires wouldn’t be much of a threat.
“Hey! Leon!”
Suddenly, Karen popped up in front of them. Who knows what she’d been up to all night—still dressed for a covert job, she strode over with a bright smile and called out in a loud voice.
“Listen to this—I’ve got news. Big news,” she said proudly.
“What is it?”
“Don’t be too shocked, okay? Or, well—try not to be
too
shocked!”
Leon tilted his head at her choppy buildup. Karen, convinced he’d be blown away, took a deep breath and dropped her bombshell—fresh from the Golden Owl no less.
The fact that she’d pulled this information together in just a single night was surely going to surprise everyone. Well, at least that’s what she thought.
“They say a vampire’s shown up in the Rubena County!”
Leon nodded, his face faintly sour, and replied, “Wow. That’s shocking.”
“W-what’s with that reaction?!” Karen screeched, not realizing that she had been a beat too late.