Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 70

Chapter 70
The next day, as soon as Leon finished breakfast, he gathered the caravan’s core members. He didn’t forget to dismiss the servants to guard against any prying ears.
Handling it like this might raise Count Rubena’s suspicions, but there was no way the man would guess they’d gotten this close to the heart of his schemes over just the first night.
Last night’s encounter had been that far beyond expectation. The stealth and escape abilities of a high-tier vampire were far above what Leon had imagined. Had it not been for several strokes of luck—and for Tepes approaching first—they might have stayed one step behind until it was too late.
Count Rubena must have known that. Summoning them had been a way to measure their capabilities.
And once he knew we couldn’t catch Tepes’ group, he knew we wouldn’t leave anytime soon,
Leon thought.
A Count’s personal request was no small thing. No matter what, they’d have to at least pretend they were giving it their all. Regardless of whether the hunt succeeded, they were now stuck in this domain.
For someone like Karen, an A-rank, that might be nothing, but for Steel Claw and Arnold, ignoring it was unthinkable. In many ways, it was a cunning trap.
Seeing right through the Count’s ploy, El-Cid spoke up.
—We need to hurry. Even if he’s stalling for time under the guise of a vampire hunt, it’ll only buy him ten days at best. That’s not long for stalling. Which means...
Something will happen before that time is up,
Leon agreed, nodding slightly. It was, in a way, strangely fitting.
First, Blaine, and now Rubena—as if it wasn’t enough that he had gotten tangled up in City Swallowing, he was now neck-deep in a plot twisting even high vampires around its finger. For a Hero, a life full of disasters was normal enough, but suffering through it all with a still-sealed Holy Sword was something else.
Noticing Leon’s somber grumble, El-Cid replied, —No, think about it the other way. Imagine that brat Lyon had been chosen as hero instead of you and started his journey a year later than you did.
You’re saying he would have been too late...?
—Exactly. Not just this place but Blaine’s too. These disasters that shouldn’t be stoppable... they were stopped because I chose you. Once could be luck, but twice? Hard to call that a coincidence.
Only then did Leon grasp the weight of what he’d done. It was clear just by the City Swallowing alone.
If Leon hadn’t been the Hero, if it had been Lyon, a year later—the city would already have been scorched earth by the time he arrived. The exolaws would’ve gained immense power, the people of Blaine would mostly be dead, and maybe even Caesare and Karen too.
However, the Hero who came into the world a year too early and the still-imperfect Holy Sword had broken that fate.
Because it was me, not Lyon...
What was this feeling swelling in his chest? Leon forced down the lump in his throat and looked up at the ceiling, eyes burning.
It felt completely different from the day he beat Lyon at the Academy. That victory had come from a rule forbidding Aura, El-Cid as his master, and a mountain of lucky breaks.
This was different. Because
he
was the Hero, not Lyon—people had been saved. He’d become a cornerstone for a better future.
For the first time, Leon felt like he’d truly beaten Lian. Of course, El-Cid had to immediately ruin the mood.
—Well, that’s all thanks to me, obviously! I’m the one who picked you as Hero! You should be bowing down to this sword ten times a day. Don’t you think so?
...
—Same here, too! If you’d shown up a year late, who knows what that Count would have done? How many people owe their lives to me by now? Even that silly goddess ought to get down on her knees and thank me, honestly!
Leon was at a loss for words at his teacher’s shamelessness. So this is the real legendary hero, the Holy King Rodrick?
If the Church’s devout worshippers ever found out, they’d probably burst their own eardrums.
Leon let it all pass in one ear and out the other.
Suddenly, Gustav shot to his feet and barked out, “Absolutely not! The Count’s using the poor as feed to raise dozens of vampires? And he’s a mage strong enough that even an A-rank like you can’t handle him? Ridiculous!”
Unlike the incensed Gustav, Karen stayed calm. This kind of reaction was expected.
“I’m only telling you the facts.”
True or not, the story was so absurd it felt unreal. That was exactly why Leon had made Karen explain it. So long as he hid that he was the Hero, an A-rank adventurer carried more weight than he did.
“And there’s no reason for me to lie. I swept through this whole domain last night and met the vampires face to face. I heard it from them myself.”
“They could be lying! You’d trust the word of bloodsucking monsters?!”
It was then that a sudden voice interjected, “We’re not exactly fond of living off blood, either, you know.”
Tepes appeared, wearing a wry smile. Startled, the mercenaries instinctively reached for their waists, only to find none of them were armed this early in the day.
Arnold, equally shaken, stammered out, “A v-vampire?! How are you showing yourself in the morning?”
“It’s just a projection. Not my real body, so sunlight doesn’t matter. And I’m not here to fight, so there’s no need to be on edge.”
To prove it, Tepes casually stuck a hand into a wall and pulled it back out, then turned back to Gustav and added, “I know it’s hard to believe, but what I said is true.”
Suspicion still burning in his eyes, Gustav answered coldly, “I’ll need proof. I won’t bet my life or my comrades’ lives on nothing but your word.”
“
Hm
. That is a fair point.”
Tepes nodded, rummaging inside his cloak. He pulled out a piece of paper—but since this was only a projection, he couldn’t physically hand it over.
Gustav narrowed his eyes, peering at it.
“What’s this...?” he muttered.
“It’s a document issued directly by the Church, certifying that the Nosferatu line’s labor sentence has officially ended.”
“A labor sentence? For vampires?”
Gustav looked dumbfounded, but Tepes just nodded as if he’d expected it and explained, “Three hundred years ago, some of my kin sided with the Demon King’s army.”
There were few crimes that carried collective punishment, but becoming an enemy of humanity was the gravest of them all. Three hundred years ago, most of the Nosferatu line had been wiped out by the Hero Rodrick, and even those who hadn’t fought were nearly executed alongside them.
Then, one priest had stood up for them.
“If we’d been human, the crime would’ve been too great to ever repay in one lifetime. But luckily, we are not human.”
A vampire’s immortality only held under certain conditions: stay out of sunlight, don’t take a wound stronger than their regeneration, and don’t let silver pierce the heart or brain.
As long as they met those, they could live for thousands of years—enough time to pay off a debt of two hundred and fifty years, more than two and a half lifetimes of humans.
“We completed our sentence, then sought a place we could settle in peace. And here, in Rubena, we thought we’d found it—”
Gustav interrupted, “And the Count stabbed you in the back?”
Tepes didn’t bother answering. He simply nodded once.
Gustav checked the seal of the Holy Church stamped on the document, then buried his face in his hands. He knew now—there was no escaping this mire they’d stepped into.
Questioning it any further was meaningless. From here on, their only chance at survival was to join forces and bring down the Count.
Having come to that conclusion, Gustav called out to Leon, “Leon, you said you summoned the Holy Iron Inquisitors, right? When will they arrive?”
“
Ah
, well...”
The moment Leon admitted that not only was their arrival time uncertain, but the whole timeline was unclear, the air in the room grew even heavier. What they needed was perfection. Yet here they were, with only more variables to worry about.
Fighting without the Inquisitors was reckless. Even just Tepes and Roman—those two vampires alone were enough to fight Leon’s group evenly, but the best they could manage was to leave their kin behind and escape.
On top of that, a mage was always strongest in their own domain.
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a prepared Mage,” Karen said firmly, speaking from hard-earned experience. “If he’s been here for decades, then even a Swordmaster couldn’t guarantee victory. The smart move is to push for an advantage in affinity—or focus on whittling down his strength first.”
“Affinity,
huh
.”
If the vampires’ testimony was true, the Count was a dark mage—a high-tier one at that. And there was only one power naturally suited to counteract dark sorcery, the power that represented order and law: holy power. In the end, it meant they had no choice but to wait for the Holy Iron Inquisitors.
“So we’ll have to buy time,” Gustav muttered.
If they could drain the Count’s strength in the meantime, all the better. From that moment on, everyone began discussing how they could stall for time and hinder the Count’s plans.
“It’s not easy...”
“Tough, this one...”
“I’ve got nothing...”
No matter how they racked their brains, no clear answer came. They had to stall the Count without him realizing their true intentions
and
hold out until the Knights arrived
while
sabotaging his schemes in the meantime.
It was already difficult enough to do just one of those. Doing both? It seemed impossible.
Then, Arnold spoke up.
“What if... we pretend to fight?”
Everyone turned to him, eyes wide. It was something so simple, no one had thought of it—precisely because of that, it was brilliant. Even the Count wouldn’t have expected
that.
Besides, if the two vampires and the group staged the fight together, they could pick the time and place at will. They could cause an uproar anywhere in the Rubena domain.
“It’s settled, then.”
It was finally time to deliver a blow to Count Rubena. Tepes, Prince of Wallachia, gave a cold smile.
***
That night, a deafening roar shook the air as dust exploded skyward. A crimson flash of light had sliced clean through several buildings, shearing their pillars and supports in a single sweep.
The man who unleashed it, Roman, rose into the night sky. A vampire’s body could slip between material and immaterial states; with a bit of magic, hovering in midair was trivial.
Waiting for this exact moment, a figure burst out below, a man wielding a zweihander taller than two meters with one hand: Gustav.
He shouted, “Who the hell are you?!”
Roman’s pale, elegant face didn’t flicker with emotion as he replied, “A name is wasted on humans.”
And once again, the long, white fingers of the noble vampire shone with light. It was a skill that converted his vast vampire life force into raw destructive power. Practically an arrow made of Aura Weapon, even stone buildings would be nothing against it.
“
Hup
!”
Gustav swung his massive blade wide in reply. The crimson ray slammed into the broadside of the zweihander and ricocheted, veering off to smash into a tower standing tall elsewhere in the domain.
However, unlike the earlier buildings, the tower didn’t collapse. A shimmering barrier of blue light absorbed the blast. It was a protection spell.
Seeing that, the eyes of both men glinted with recognition.
Leon was right.
Gustav’s grip tightened around the zweihander’s hilt. They now had more proof that the Count really was a mage.
Those spire-like structures scattered throughout the land—unknown to the locals, accessible only by the Count—were pillars forming a giant magic circle covering the entire domain. Leon had told them, guided by El-Cid’s advice, to “accidentally” destroy them.
“
A mage will place amplifying structures and artifacts throughout their domain to boost their power. Those strange towers and monuments might be exactly that.
”
Of course, not all of them actually held magical power. The Count wasn’t a fool; likely more than half were mere decoys. Leon and El-Cid both knew that, but they hadn’t told the others. If they destroyed only the real ones, the Count would notice immediately.
—
We have to make it look like a pure coincidence.
Hearing the echo of El-Cid’s reminder in his mind, Leon agreed silently as another distant boom rolled over the rooftops. Shortest case—three, maybe four days. Longest—ten. Rush it, and they’d blow their cover.
If the Count snapped too soon, it would all be over. They needed to keep this staged fight going just enough to wear him down.
As that thought crossed Leon’s mind, he drew his sword. A red beam flashed past his shoulder, punching clean through the wall behind him like paper. If it had hit him dead-on, it would have gone straight through his armor and torso both.
Leon dodged the blast with a half-step and glanced up into the night sky. A black-haired vampire prince with the bearing of a noble youth was staring down at him with his crimson eyes.
Only then did Leon remember, and he asked El-Cid,
Wait—am I not supposed to release my Aura?
—Of course not. If even a wisp of your Aura touches him, he’ll burn alive on the spot.
Goddammit!
Staged fight or not, the vampires’ attacks were real. He had to fight a high-tier vampire without using Aura Weapon while “coincidentally” destroying the surrounding structures.
The difficulty level had just spiked tenfold.
Leon had no choice. He steeled himself to fight with only physical enhancement and sword technique. He’d just have to stage a close match without vaporizing Tepes by accident.
He raised his blade and shouted, “Come at me!”
And with that, the fake battle began. Leon poured in more focus than he ever had, determined not to accidentally incinerate his co-conspirator.
Luckily, the worst didn’t happen. The real problem came next.
El-Cid remarked suddenly, —
Hm
? Actually, this is great training.
Leon felt the chill run down his back. He asked,
Wait, you can’t be serious...?
—Why not keep this up tomorrow too? It’s perfect. Gotta raise your level somehow, right?
What the hell are you saying?! This is insane!
—Come on—my disciple can do it. You don’t want to roast this poor vampire by accident, do you? Come on, do your best.
Leon could feel cold sweat soaking through his clothes as he flung the Holy Sword away.
“You damned cursed sword!”
It looked like his suffering was far from over.