WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 65

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Two Exiles (12)

The soldiers could not move, even after their comrade was stabbed. Unable to process what had just happened, they only stared blankly at the blood running down his neck.

The guard squad leader standing right behind the soldier whose throat had been pierced was no different.

It had happened in the blink of an eye.

There had been no presence. No warning. At the guard squad leader's chin gesture to open the door, one of the soldiers reached for the doorknob, and in that instant, a silver blade suddenly burst through the door. It drove straight through the soldier's throat with perfect accuracy, as if the person on the other side could see clearly through the closed door.

What?

His confused mind refused to settle. He could not immediately accept the sight in front of him.

Wasn't he asleep? No, had he already woken up and been waiting for them?

"Kuh... kuhuhk..."

The wide-eyed soldier kept coughing up blood as he staggered backward. The soldiers around him flinched and stepped away.

Beyond the slowly opening door, a figure came into view. Black hair and black eyes. Behind the blade that had thrust through the door, there was a faintly shining crossguard and a hand gripping the hilt. Farther inside, a blonde, golden-eyed woman had pulled the hood of a black cloak over her head and was glaring out into the hallway.

"Th-Those bastards..."

They were the very people the lord had described. Another soldier, lucky enough to still be alive, raised a finger and was about to speak when the blonde, golden-eyed woman lifted her right hand. Immediately after, a formless sphere burst out from inside the room. It shot through the doorway in an instant and struck the soldier who had just opened his mouth squarely in the pit of his stomach.

Boom!

The soldier's body flew into the air and slammed into the hallway wall where a lamp hung. He did not even have time to react. A beat later, the remaining soldiers and the guard squad leader turned to look behind them. The soldier, his organs ruptured and blood spilling from his mouth, was crumpling to the floor with unfocused eyes.

Slaaash!

The silver blade lodged in the door came down diagonally. It cut cleanly through the wood as it slid free, scattering bright red blood from the side of the throat it had pierced.

"C-Catch them!"

"Kill the man, and capture the woman alive...!"

The soldiers never finished speaking. Kyle shoved the door open with his body and swung the lowered sword upward. The soldiers hurriedly grabbed their weapons, but they could not resist. Starting with the soldier whose throat had first been pierced, they fell one by one, as if being silenced.

It was a one-sided massacre. There were no proper screams, not even final cries. It was overwhelming slaughter. Under the lamps lining the hallway, fresh blood sprayed every time a silver arc of sword light flashed.

Every swing of the sword brought down another soldier.

By the time he came to his senses, only the guard squad leader remained.

Even though they were guards of a border fortress, it made no difference. Not one of them managed to withstand Kyle's sword more than once. The guard squad leader finally understood what was happening and turned to run. But Kyle was faster.

Thud!

The guard squad leader's large body slammed into the floor. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, and a moment later, a cold blade touched the side of his neck.

Before he knew it, Kyle was standing over him.

"Did the lord of Ligrid Fortress send you?"

Kyle asked in a flat voice. The man moved his lips a few times, then answered in a trembling voice.

"W-We were... only ordered by our superiors to conduct a search..."

"So it was the lord. What was the order?"

"We were ordered to find and capture two people... one tall mercenary who uses a sword, and one female mage in a black cloak. Kill the man, and take the woman alive..."

"Anything else?"

Kyle asked again. The guard squad leader, gasping under the fear of death, barely managed to open his mouth.

"N-No. I heard nothing else. Only that they were important people and that we must never let them escape..."

"I see."

For a single instant, light flickered along the blade. The strike passed like a glancing cut, and the guard squad leader clutched his throat while making choking sounds. Within seconds, his eyes clouded over. The wooden hallway grew wet with running blood.

Damn it.

Kyle's eyes narrowed as he looked down at the corpses. This was clearly his mistake. Normally, they should have left the inn before the soldiers arrived. But they had failed to do so.

He had deliberately kept his consciousness on the border between dream and reality, but he had fallen more deeply asleep than expected. Because of that, his judgment had been slow. More precisely, fatigue had dulled his senses. On top of that, the lord had moved far faster than expected. Without issuing a muster order to the Mercenary Guild, he had pulled most of the guards and immediately begun the search. As expected of someone from the pro-Imperial faction, his speed was almost recklessly decisive.

If I knew this would happen, I should have stayed at an inn with a window.

Only after the soldiers entered the first-floor dining hall had he realized the lord had made his move. If there had been a window, they could have slipped outside, but this inn's room was sealed off, so that was impossible. Kyle blamed himself for being careless. But not for long. He quickly assessed their situation and surroundings.

"Kyle."

Elysia carefully left the room and stood beside him. Without looking back at her, Kyle said,

"Sorry. This was my mistake, and I have no excuse."

"No. Do not blame yourself. I only noticed after you woke me. Thanks to you, I was at least able to close my eyes for a little while."

"..."

"Are we moving right away?"

Elysia asked. Kyle lightly shook the blood from his blade, then sheathed his sword.

"We should. There will be soldiers outside too."

Now that the lord had noticed them, they could not stay here. Leaving the soldiers' corpses behind, the two moved down the hallway. From inside the open rooms, he felt the gazes of the people who had been subjected to forced inspections just moments ago.

"Eek...!"

A few of them let out tiny, sharp screams when they saw Kyle. Kyle paid them no mind. He silently looked straight ahead and kept walking. When they went down to the first floor through the hallway stairs, the innkeeper, the employees, and the other guests were all staring at them with tense faces.

"Huh...?"

"What about the soldiers?"

"I heard screams earlier... Did he really kill them all?"

"Why are there only two of them?"

Low murmurs came from all sides. Kyle walked through them without a word. Elysia followed close behind him with quick steps.

When he opened the inn door, a cold night wind rushed in.

The sky outside had already gone completely dark. The city's lights, however, were still bright. Amid them, guards who should normally have been defending the walls were moving through the streets. In every direction, soldiers' shouts mixed with the yelling of people being searched without warning.

"Hey, over there..."

"What?"

Several soldiers out on the street frowned as they looked toward Kyle. Before they could recognize them, Kyle silently grabbed Elysia's hand and stepped into an alley.

"This way."

Kyle gave no further explanation. Even so, Elysia quietly followed where he led. They walked for several minutes, almost running.

When the wall bordering the frontier came into view not far away, Elysia finally opened her mouth.

"Are you planning to climb over the wall like this?"

"Yes. We don't have much time left. We haven't been exposed yet, but that won't last long. We should cross the wall and put as much distance between us and them as quickly as possible."

"Because of the wyvern knights?"

Elysia asked. Kyle did not deny it.

"The fact that a messenger hawk arrived, even late, means they haven't given up."

The same went for the lord of Ligrid Fortress. Seeing how he had pulled most of the guards and stirred up the inside of the fortress city under the pretext of a search, he clearly had no intention of letting them go quietly. Just by capturing Kyle and Elysia, he could gain Imperial connections and a huge reward. If he failed, he would be cut loose anyway, so it was obvious he was trying to slow them down however he could.

"Are you tired?"

After advancing through the alley without hesitation for a while, Kyle stopped and looked back.

"No, I am fine. Thanks to you, I am much better than before."

Elysia said it lightly. It did not seem like a lie. Her complexion looked far better than when she had eaten dinner at the inn. Rather than not being tired, it seemed her mind was clear.

"What about you, Kyle?"

"No problem here either."

Kyle gave a curt answer and looked up. In truth, his mind was as clear as Elysia's.

Because he had fallen asleep deeper than expected, the situation had nearly gone wrong, but it was not all bad. Thanks to even that short stretch of proper sleep, much of his fatigue had faded. He was not in perfect condition, but this was good enough.

"Since they've already noticed, we'll move the plan forward."

"How?"

"We cross the fortress wall as is and run to the border. At the very least, we can't fight on unfavorable ground like this."

From this point on, it was a fight against time. Kyle stared at the blackened sky for a short while, then lowered his gaze and looked ahead.

"Let's go."

With that, he moved through the alley again. Elysia did not question Kyle's decision and simply followed behind him. Without running into a single person, the two kept moving.

The eastern wall connected to the border grew larger as they approached. At the same time, the noise of the streets faded.

"It is quiet."

Perhaps they had left only the minimum number of guards to defend the wall and sent most of the rest into the fortress city, because the area near the east gate was quiet, unlike the center.

"What will you do? Are we going inside the watchtower like last time?"

"...No."

Kyle stared at the eastern wall of the fortress standing not far away.

As expected of a fortress bordering another country, the wall was larger and grander than that of an ordinary city, but it could not compare to Ligrid Gate, a legacy of the Kingdom of Alenos.

The wall of the gate had been roughly thirty meters high. The fortress wall in front of them now was only a little over ten meters, not even half as high as the gate. At that height, there was no need to waste time going inside the watchtower. There was a more efficient method.

"Running will be better."

"What?"

Elysia had no time to question him. Kyle bent his upper body and hooked his right forearm behind Elysia's knees. He lifted her up and slung her over his right shoulder as if carrying a sack.

"Wai...!"

Kyle did not listen to the rest. He drew out the mana of the ring and focused it into his feet. A small but fierce wind wrapped around his reinforced body.

Bang!

Kyle kicked off the ground. His body, carrying Elysia over his shoulder, shot into the air for an instant as if defying gravity. Kyle did not stop there.

Just as he began to fall, he used the outer walls of the buildings on both sides of the alley as footholds and dashed onward.

It was incredibly fast. Like a ricocheting bullet, he kicked off the buildings' outer walls and zigzagged through the alley. As his acceleration built, the scenery flashing past grew faster. The impact transmitted through the walls he pushed off grew stronger. Elysia, slung over his shoulder, muttered something, but he ignored it.

Baaang!

He kicked off the last building. This time, he did not simply push forward. Using all the acceleration he had built up, he leaped upward. Part of the outer wall of the building he had used as a foothold crumbled under the impact.

Before long, Kyle was flying through the sky. Or at least, it looked like he was.

A leap that easily crossed more than ten meters created that illusion for a single instant. The fortress scenery below his feet grew faint and distant.

Crunch.

Kyle's brief flight traced an arc through the air, and he set his foot on the wall's parapet. The stone parapet could not withstand the weight swelled by speed and crumbled away with a small puff of dust.

The soldiers on top of the wall saw the deeply dented parapet where his foot had landed, then Kyle, who had suddenly fallen from the sky, and their eyes widened.

"Huh...?"

"What is that?"

Kyle let the soldiers' voices pass in one ear and looked beyond the wall. Where the mountain range began, the wide hills where Brendel and Tervan met at the border spread out before him.

Is this the deciding point?

He did not know how long it would take. Even so, he instinctively knew it was close. Once they crossed these hills, they would be in the Duchy of Tervan. From there, the mountains grew sharply rougher. The duchy itself had terrain where proper cities were hard to build except on the highlands where its capital stood.

So the outcome will be decided before that. Wyverns have limits to how high they can fly.

That was better. He did not ask himself whether he could win. He had to win.

He glanced back one last time. The city's lights still shone brightly.

Beyond them, the huge Ligrid Mountains rose tall behind the fortress. His thoughts lasted only a moment. Kyle threw himself down from the wall without hesitation. Startled shouts rose from the soldiers. The shape of a person vanished into the dark brush. Nothing stood in Kyle's way anymore.

***

"They all... died?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Seven, including the guard squad leader. It seems they were attacked at an inn a little removed from the center."

"And the targets?"

"...They escaped. By the time another guard squad discovered the dead soldiers, they had already left. We are questioning the other guests at the inn, but no especially useful information has come out yet."

Konrad, lord of Ligrid Fortress, rubbed his throbbing forehead. A sigh nearly escaped him on its own.

"So, they found the targets, but the targets struck first, and seven soldiers, including the guard squad leader, were killed. By the time the site was discovered, the targets had already fled. Since then, there has been no meaningful result. Did I understand that correctly, Sir Bron?"

"...Yes. I have no excuse."

The knight standing before him lowered his head deeply with a stiff expression. Konrad could no longer hold back his sigh.

"Ha..."

He closed his eyes. After chewing on his lips several times, Konrad muttered to himself.

He had been certain they were there. It had been confirmed that they had passed through the fortress, and as long as there was no word of them passing through the eastern gate connected to the border region, the odds were extremely high.

The question was, how?

That doubt would not leave his mind. He had deliberately avoided issuing a muster order through the Mercenary Guild in order to search faster. He had left only the minimum number of men needed to guard the walls and sent everyone else into the city.

On top of that, since the guards here were close to the border, their standards were higher than those of other cities in the kingdom. Yet the targets had easily killed seven soldiers, including the guard squad leader, and escaped. The letter had said they would have lost much of their stamina crossing the mountains. That only made it harder to understand.

Was that traitorous female mage stronger than expected?

Or was there something about that mercenary that had not been written in the letter?

"What will you do?"

While Konrad groaned in thought, the knight carefully watched his mood and asked. Konrad opened his eyes and parted his tightly closed lips.

"You said they haven't been caught yet?"

"Yes."

"Then send the people searching now back toward the eastern gate. Once they have been exposed, they will try to leave the fortress city no matter what. There is no need to force a capture. Just stall until the wyvern knights arrive."

"Understood. Then..."

"T-Terrible news!"

Just as the knight gave a small bow and was about to step back, the office door suddenly flew open. A soldier rushed in, gasping for breath. Konrad's face twisted with displeasure.

"What is it?"

"The eastern wall has been breached! Someone crossed the fortress without even opening the gate..."

"What did you say?"

Konrad's eyes widened. The knight looking back at him reacted the same way.

"When was that?"

"Just now. Actually, the incident happened some time ago, but..."

Konrad did not listen to the rest. He immediately left the inner keep's office and went up to the top-floor rooftop. The knight and other soldiers followed behind him.

When he stepped into the open space, cold night wind swept over his whole body. Konrad did not care. It was the highest point of the inner keep, a place where the whole city could be seen. As he turned his gaze toward the eastern wall, his face distorted viciously.

Even from far away, the scene looked far from normal. A crowd larger than before, and restless soldiers. At a glance, anyone could tell something had happened. Judging from the report just now, the targets had likely escaped. And quite some time had probably passed since then.

"Count, about that..."

The soldier who had first delivered the report fidgeted nervously. Those who had followed after reading the situation did the same. Konrad gripped the railing tightly and clenched his teeth.

They got away?

Even if this fortress was not as grand as Ligrid Gate, a legacy of Alenos, it still bordered the kingdom's frontier and had walls higher than most cities. Its guards were the same. No matter how skilled a mage was, it was difficult to accept that they had escaped without issue. Still, blindly denying it would not change the current situation.

Should I send a pursuit force?

It was a message from the wyvern knight. To avoid punishment, he should at least appear to have tried something.

All I need to do is hold them up anyway, right?

As Konrad thought that, a sudden chilling sensation made him whip around. His face, twisted with anger, slowly changed. First to doubt, then shock, and finally fear. Seeing him open his mouth with eyes wide, everyone stared at Konrad in confusion.

"Count?"

"..."

"What is the matter? We should form a pursuit force at once..."

Konrad let out a trembling breath. The knight who had just turned around stiffened just like the count.

"Gods..."

Someone muttered quietly to themselves. The others who turned their heads to follow Konrad's gaze reacted the same way.

Something was flying over the huge Ligrid Mountains. Two wyverns crossed the vast sky under the moonlight. The fast-approaching wyverns were colored blood-red and vivid emerald green. Beneath their wide-spread wings, black shadows hung like darkness.

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