WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 27

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The Forgotten City (7)

Footsteps rang sharply through the vast archive. A moment later, they stopped.

A man stepped out from the shadows, his hair cut short.

Under the white lamplight, his gray fur coat and solid build stood out. On his forearm was a tattoo of two venomous snakes coiled around a long dagger. Kyle narrowed his eyes at the familiar mark.

No way.

"So this is where you ran off to in such a hurry. And I see we already have other guests..."

The man took his time scanning the archive, then turned his gaze to the three of them.

Kyle and Lena. And Hanna, who had just come running in.

A thin, sour smile spread across his lips. In guilds, mercenary bands, and knightly orders, it was not unusual to carve your group's mark into your body.

And Kyle knew exactly what that mark was. There was no way he could mistake it.

Twin Fangs of Silence.

Once under Serentia, now independent, a notorious assassination guild feared across the entire south.

"Eek...!"

Hanna let out a shrill scream when she saw him.

"Ah, ah..."

"Hanna-ssi? What is it? What happened?"

Muttering to herself, Hanna collapsed where she stood. Lena hurried to catch her. Her face was full of terror. Covered in blood and drenched in cold sweat, she was clearly not in a normal state.

"Hanna-ssi, calm down. What happened?"

"Erik... Bruno..."

"What? Come to think of it, where are the other two...?"

They were gone. Realizing it a beat too late, Lena looked around in panic.

Bruno and Erik, Hanna's companions, were nowhere in sight. Right now, the only people in the archive were Kyle, Lena, Hanna, and the man at the entrance.

"They stayed behind. They said they'd protect me..."

"..."

"They should not have. I should have stayed too. But I ran away alone like a coward, so..."

Her voice kept shrinking. Lena held the sobbing Hanna, trying to soothe her.

"Did she have another friend besides those two? That is unexpected."

The man watching them from the archive entrance spoke up. He looked amused as he watched Hanna and Lena.

"Twin Fangs of Silence."

Kyle stepped forward.

"Oh? You know us?"

"..."

"Well, that makes sense. Our guild mark is pretty famous."

The man said it lightly and glanced at his forearm. The guild emblem, a dagger and snakes, was inked there.

"So?"

After breaking the silence, he asked again.

"Are you with that woman, or do you just know her?"

Kyle did not answer. He only stared at the man, who seemed to be the guild master of Twin Fangs of Silence. The man spun a dagger in his right hand out of habit. The long blade turned without a sound, and the finely carved runes along it glimmered faintly.

Not an ordinary dagger.

A relic, or an artifact.

"I'm not with her."

After a short pause, Kyle spoke.

"Yeah? Then is she your friend?"

"Not that either."

"Good. Then hand her over. She was our prey to begin with. We are getting tired of playing with her, so it is time to cut off her breath."

"You are going to kill her?"

"Yes. Just her. Nothing more. Today's haul is enough, and I do not feel like shedding extra blood."

Tap.

The man stopped spinning the dagger and gripped it. The lazy eyes that had been sizing them up narrowed in an instant like a predator's, as if measuring their strength.

After meeting his gaze for a moment, Kyle turned slightly and looked at Hanna slumped behind him. Cradled in Lena's arms, she still looked incapable of coherent thought. Her robe was in tatters, stiff with dried blood. Her ragged breathing suggested a critical injury.

Even at a glance, she showed signs of poison and shallow and deep stab wounds all over her body. On top of that, heavy blood loss. Her staff was gone as well.

I can guess what happened.

In a brief instant, countless possibilities flashed through Kyle's mind and vanished. It was not hard to infer what had happened.

Erik's party had the bad luck to cross paths with Twin Fangs of Silence.

Assassins were skilled trackers, so following them would not have been difficult. In dungeons and ruins like this, killing for plunder was common. Erik's party was all Bronze Rank and stronger than average, but not strong enough to beat Twin Fangs of Silence.

If they fought, the result was decided from the start. Head-on or ambush from the shadows, it made no difference. Unlike the two who were nowhere to be seen, Hanna was unmistakably alive.

There was only one conclusion.

Did they keep her alive just to play with her?

"Kyle-ssi..."

Lena, rubbing Hanna's back, spoke in a trembling voice.

"Hm. No matter how I look at this, you do not seem like strangers who met by chance."

"So you are in the same party after all, right?"

The man grinned. Instead of answering, Kyle asked his own question.

"The other two."

"Hm?"

"What did you do with them?"

"Oh, those guys?"

The man frowned and looked up, as if replaying the memory.

"I killed them. Very slowly."

"..."

"More precisely, I poisoned their limbs and stabbed them one by one. Killing them right away is no fun."

He spoke calmly, casually, like he was talking about what he had eaten yesterday.

"They were stubborn bastards. Even while I stabbed and tore into them, they kept smirking. Was it because their teammate escaped alive? They spat and cursed, trying to buy time however they could. Made it even more pitiful."

"...And then?"

"It was pretty fresh. Not bad. No, honestly, it was good. I am sick of the ones who just beg to live. So I gave them a clean end. Driving a dagger into the back of the neck felt pretty good too..."

Hanna's body shook violently in Lena's arms. Biting her lip, Lena glared at the man and tightened the arm around Hanna's back. Kyle, on the other hand, only watched him without expression.

Men who felt pleasure in killing.

They were all the same. Kyle had seen plenty of them. Beasts ruled by raw instinct, who killed for fun and felt no guilt and no burden. A type of person he knew far too well.

"Why are you all making those faces? That is how humans live."

That calm tone said the same thing.

"Anyone watching would think I am some lunatic. The weak die, the strong survive. Is that not the natural law of survival of the fittest? No need to feel wronged. You were just unlucky today. So, like I said..."

"Let me say it again. Hand over that woman. I will not say it twice."

"Is your goal plunder?"

"Plunder? Ah, sure, that too. But we already took everything worth taking."

"Then what?"

"Discipline."

His voice echoed softly through the giant archive.

"My own discipline. My guild's discipline. If I bite someone, I kill them. That is how you avoid being looked down on."

"..."

"If you keep giving ground one piece at a time, eventually there is no rule left. Before a fight is one thing, but once I decide to kill, I kill no matter what. So hand over that bitch quietly and I will leave. If not..."

He moved his right hand slightly. Under the lamplight, the rune-carved dagger gave off a cold killing edge.

Kyle swallowed a dry laugh. As expected, it was no ordinary weapon.

Judging by the runes, several different spell formations were mixed into it.

Kyle slowly closed his eyes. In an instant, his sealed senses spread out, sharpened to the extreme. The remaining mana particles from when he had just taken down the Rune Guardian let him read the entire archive as clearly as if he were looking down from above.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

As expected, not one man alone. Including him, there were seven in total. From the shadows by the entrance to the blind spots between the shelves.

All hidden in perfect positions for an ambush. Had he drawn out this conversation on purpose while setting everything up in advance?

"...This is why assassins are what they are."

"What?"

The man frowned at Kyle's low mutter.

"Assassin guilds are the lowest of the low, taking contract kills for money without hesitation. You did not come after this dungeon for a contract. This was personal curiosity."

"...So what?"

"It means trusting you would take longer than tearing your throat out right now."

Lowering his gaze, Kyle wrapped his left hand around his sword pommel. The familiar feel in his grip calmed his mind. In his right hand was a fresh Top-grade Magicite.

I will save the one we took from the Rune Guardian earlier. It is not time to use it yet. This is enough to stir mana.

The only variable was Lena and Hanna behind him.

"Heh."

The man's mouth twisted into a strange grin.

"You really are not an ordinary mercenary. Silver Rank. No, Gold Rank?"

His eyes swept over Kyle from head to toe. Equipment. Weapon. Stance. Everything.

"Or... are you a knight of Marquis Filein?"

His gaze narrowed. For someone who was merely a strong mercenary, Kyle's fundamentals were too complete. That iron-wall atmosphere often seen in orthodox knights. Also the way he kept making tiny shifts to avoid giving angles to the six assassins hidden between the shelves.

"Marquis Filein?"

"No, no. Forget that. That coward is probably busy raiding Count Metis's trading convoy right now."

The man frowned and shook his head slightly. Marquis Filein was as thorough in preparation as he was scheming. If reports were true, he had deployed a large knight force, so mere escort mercenaries would have fallen without even resisting.

"For an assassination guild, you are definitely below Serentia."

At the word Serentia, the man's eyes flashed wide.

"What?"

"Count Metis's trading convoy already made it. Marquis Filein's soldiers and knights are all buried in the hills. He is probably raging by now."

"Filein failed? And you expect me to believe that?"

"Yes. You seem cut off from outside information, so you must have been in this dungeon for a while."

"Do not talk nonsense. Filein hired four knights."

"And all four died. By my hand."

Kyle's slender fingers tapped the hilt at his waist. The man watched him closely. The distance was not short, but with mana-reinforced vision, he caught every movement.

He did not look like he was lying. The black eyes beneath his dark hair were still calm, just as before. No flicker, no shake. Quiet, like the center of a pitch-black lake.

"Hahahahahahaha!"

Suddenly, the man burst into wild laughter.

"Fine, you win. You got me."

Clang!

He dropped the dagger in his right hand. The cold rune-etched blade rolled roughly across the floor. Behind Kyle, Lena, still holding Hanna, stared with wide eyes.

In a standoff that looked ready to explode, he dropped his weapon. Why?

"Let us do this."

The man raised both empty hands.

"I will not kill that woman. You do not have to hand her over either."

"Instead, let us cooperate for now. Until we leave this dungeon and reach a nearby city. I do not care whether you are a Gold-rank mercenary or a knight from some house. If what you said is true, Marquis Filein failed at the trading convoy raid and will be foaming at the mouth over this dungeon, no, this ruin."

"He will come after it?"

"More precisely, he will set a trap outside. That is the kind of bastard he is."

The man walked forward slowly.

"So? Will you accept? It is not a bad deal for your side either."

He smiled.

"I will let the woman live. It is very rare for Nyx Varkein to abandon prey once marked. I can count it on one hand in my whole life, so you should feel honored."

"What an honor. Nice little trick."

"A trick? Not at all. I am always serious. In work and in play."

The man stopped.

"Like this."

Swoosh!

His hand blurred, and something flashed toward them. At the same time, the rune dagger he had shown off and set down rushed at Kyle on its own, as if it had a will.

A perfectly timed ambush. The kind of attack that would have killed an ordinary mercenary before he could react. At that signal, the assassins hidden all around charged at once. Like their leader, they threw concealed weapons from their sleeves at Kyle's vital points. Flashing blades filled the space in front of him.

Sparks rang out in rapid succession. The incoming blades failed to touch Kyle and ricocheted in midair. The magic stone shattering in Kyle's right hand scattered white particles of light. The deflected daggers changed direction and flew back toward the assassins.

"What...?!"

"Incantationless Magic?!"

"Dodge!"

The returning weapons punched into their owners' flesh. Assassins struck directly in the vitals collapsed as they ran. Far faster than the original throw. Of the six assassins, only one reacted.

The last survivor drew a new dagger at point-blank range and slashed with terrifying speed. It was not even swordsmanship, just the shortest possible movement made purely to kill. Kyle dodged lightly, then grabbed the assassin's neck with his left hand. The man stared in shock, as if he had never imagined he would be caught so easily.

"Chris!"

The leader, who had just blocked the dagger Kyle sent back at him, shouted in panic. Kyle glanced at him, then looked at the struggling assassin.

"So you blocked it. I wrapped it in Wind Magic and threw it to kill instantly."

"Khk... ngh..."

"You are skilled. Your running form too, and you made almost no sound... at this level, even decent Gold-rank mercenaries would be in danger."

Kyle turned back toward the entrance. The relaxed expression from before was gone, and the man stood there glaring at Kyle with murderous eyes. This was completely outside his expectations. Kyle using magic, and his assassin subordinates dying without even a shred of resistance, seemed to be something he had never seen before.

"Is he one you value?"

Kyle asked. The man did not answer. Silence was answer enough.

"I see."

Kyle tightened his left hand around the neck.

"Too bad."

Crack!

With the sound of bone breaking, the assassin's neck went limp.

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