WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 79

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Prey and Hunter (2)

The late afternoon sunlight broke white across the surface of the lake.

A heavy scent of flowers rode the wind.

“What are those bastards doing now?”

Jade, who had just been about to return to the carriage, stopped and furrowed his brow. Kyle narrowed his eyes and looked toward the hill on the opposite side. Faces he had never seen before were climbing one by one onto the hilltop that had been empty only moments ago. There were easily dozens of them, and every last one rode a large horse.

“Barbarian tribes...?”

Elysia, standing behind Kyle, murmured in disbelief. The mounted figures turned their gazes toward Kyle’s group by the lakeshore below the opposite hill.

Unlike ordinary southerners, they had tattoos across much of their bodies. The men wore things that might have been leather or might have been rags, baring half their upper bodies. The women were dressed much the same. They carried bows in their hands, and quivers hung from one side of their horses. Curved scimitars were fastened at their waists. With their deeply tanned skin, it was not hard to guess who they were.

“No, it hasn’t even been a full day yet. Isn’t this against the rules? We even took the auxiliary trade route on purpose.”

Jade groaned, his face stiff. He turned to Kyle and asked.

“Hey, you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“That arrow. You’re not hurt, are you?”

Jade and Elysia’s gazes went to the same place. In Kyle’s right hand was an arrow that had just flown in at incredible speed.

At that speed, an ordinary person would have suffered a fatal wound if it struck anywhere. Kyle, however, was perfectly calm.

“I’m fine. It would have been a different story if it had hit me.”

Kyle turned the arrow in his hand toward his face and examined the arrowhead closely. Whether it had been looted from their enemies, or it belonged to the regular troops who had committed treason and joined the barbarians, the metal of the arrowhead had been worked with considerable precision.

Paralysis poison? Or a deadly poison meant purely to kill? It did not matter. If it did not hit, it meant nothing.

“More importantly, there are more barbarians than I expected.”

“How many?”

“Just from what I can sense right now, well over thirty.”

“That many? More than thirty mounted bastards just from what we can see?”

Jade glanced back up at the hill. Kyle and Elysia followed his gaze.

With their first attack having failed, the barbarians revealed themselves. All of them were mounted, and after looking at Kyle’s group and the carriage near the lakeshore, they began talking among themselves. Judging from their startled expressions, they had not expected Kyle to block the arrow, much less catch it by hand. One barbarian lowered his head, the hand holding his bow trembling.

Was it him?

There was quite a distance from the opposite hill to the lakeshore below.

Even if it had been a surprise attack, being able to fire an arrow that accurately at that speed put him on the level of a veteran ranger from any decent duchy. The bow looked like a composite bow too, not an ordinary one. Its draw weight had to be strong. The sword at his waist was probably no decoration either, but something he used in real combat.

“Kyle, over there...”

With the hill above and the lakeshore below, in the middle of that tense standoff, Elysia raised her hand and pointed. A man was riding out through the mounted barbarians. Unlike the others, he carried a much larger bow and sword.

“Is that bastard the commander of that unit?”

“Looks that way.”

Kyle answered curtly and narrowed his eyes. The man, who had been glaring down at the lakeshore with vicious eyes, looked past Jade and Elysia and fixed his stare on Kyle in the center.

You want to do this?

Kyle did not look away. The man moved first. He raised the bow, much larger than those of the other barbarians, and nocked an arrow. The drawn string pulled taut, the arrow aimed directly at Kyle.

A faint blur of light gathered around the arrow. Watching it, Jade’s eyes widened slightly. Mana could be used in countless ways. Just as it could be condensed and used as Sword Aura, with enough skill, it could also be poured into other bladed weapons.

“Hey, Kyle.”

“Talk.”

“Draw their attention for a moment. You and the lady can use magic, right?”

“So?”

“I’ll circle around and hit them from behind. Looks like they mainly use bows, so if we take out their leader...”

“No, forget it. No need to go the long way around.”

Kyle spun the poison-coated arrow in his hand. The ring on his left hand flashed with brilliant, five-colored light for an instant, and an artificial wind lifted the arrow into the air, aiming it toward the man.

So he still won’t dodge.

Kyle twisted his lips. Far up on the hill, the man kept staring steadily at Kyle. The light clinging to his arrow, tiny as a dot from this distance, grew even stronger. The arrow floating above Kyle’s palm became wrapped in wind and began spinning violently.

The highlands were where the barbarians had been born and raised. Until now, those who entered this place had been prey to them.

Would it be the same this time?

Piiing!

The bowstring snapped free from the man’s fingers. Wrapped in clear light, the arrow shot fiercely down from the hilltop toward the lakeshore, tearing through the air.

Kyle fired the arrow he had spun to its limit straight forward.

The arrowhead, coated in dark blue poison, crossed the air while spewing a violent spiral of wind behind its shaft. Two arrows advanced from both sides, flashing in the span of an instant. The moment they met and crossed in the middle of the lake, an explosion burst out.

Kwaaaaang!

Savage ripples spread across the calm surface. The two arrows, their paths thrown off, flew away in different directions.

Between them, an invisible blade slipped in without a sound. A sharp stream of wind closed the distance in an instant and shredded several barbarians who had appeared on the hilltop. The barbarians’ eyes widened as if they would split when they saw their comrades and horses suddenly collapse, spraying blood. Watching their faces twist in shock, Kyle spoke without looking back.

“Jade.”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Protect Ellie. If anyone circles around in secret or launches a surprise attack, don’t talk to them. Kill them all in one stroke.”

“You’re going alone?”

Kyle kicked off the ground without listening to the rest. Jade shouted in surprise.

“No, hey! Kyle!”

Jade’s voice rang out behind him. Kyle ignored it. The emerald lake was already right in front of him. At the point where earth met water, Kyle reinforced both legs with mana and leaped high.

His body floated through the air. The barbarians, who had been glaring at him like they wanted him dead and nocking arrows in perfect order, stared blankly at the black cloak fluttering over the middle of the lake.

Just before Kyle’s falling feet touched the lake’s surface.

Crack!

The surface froze. Kyle used that shard of ice as a foothold and pushed himself forward again. Each time his feet touched the water, the surface froze beneath him.

A rain of arrows poured down over Kyle’s head as he slid across the lake. The barbarians had belatedly come to their senses and fired their bows at Kyle all at once from horseback. Kyle lightly waved his left hand, the one wearing the ring. A huge current of wind blew in from afar and deflected every falling arrow as if forming a barrier in front of him.

Kang!

That was when a single arrow, glowing vivid blue, pierced through the wall of wind and rushed in. Kyle drew his sword by reflex and struck the arrow away.

The hilltop was much closer than before. The man who seemed to be the barbarians’ commander stared at Kyle with a hardened face. With the distance closed, Kyle could clearly see his expression twist. Kyle swung his wind-wrapped sword diagonally. The man instinctively drew his own sword and swung at the same time.

Fwoosh!

Blood burst out on both sides. More barbarians died.

The stream of wind that bounced off the man’s sword spat out red sparks.

The man had blocked it. After signaling to the other surviving barbarians, he quickly turned his horse and descended beyond the hill. Kyle poured even more mana and wind into both feet and flew up the slope. By the time he stood at the very top of the hill, arrows were already right in front of him.

Kakakakang!

The star iron blade knocked away the incoming arrows one after another. Kyle furrowed his brow and looked down the hill.

The barbarians, already having abandoned their position, were disappearing between ridges thick with conifers. Their speed was remarkable. Kyle stood there for a while, until the barbarians vanished completely and only the severed arrows beneath his feet remained. Belatedly, Jade and Elysia brought the carriage up to the hill where Kyle stood.

“So? Did you catch them?”

“...No. I lost them.”

Jade jumped down from the coachman’s seat. He looked past the conifers Kyle had been staring at. Naturally, there was not a trace of the barbarians.

“Damn it. They attack however they want, then run away? What kind of cowardly bastards are these?”

He grumbled. Kyle answered without much reaction.

“There were more of them than I thought. I assumed there were around thirty, but they had more forces behind them.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Looks like those bastards are killing and looting trading convoys and mercenaries passing through this trade route...”

They tested the waters with the first arrow. If they could kill the target, they killed. If they decided they could not, they withdrew early and preserved their forces. It was guerrilla warfare that made full use of the mountain terrain and the mobility of their horses. They had simply encountered Kyle sooner than he had expected.

“What will you do now? Are we following them?”

Elysia, who had also stepped down from the carriage, asked. Kyle shook his head.

“No. Let’s go. We can’t chase them anyway.”

When he looked up, the sun had sunk a little lower than before. At the carriage’s speed, they could not catch the barbarians’ horses when the barbarians knew every inch of this area.

Human corpses and horse carcasses lay scattered nearby. After giving the red-stained scene one last glance, Kyle climbed into the carriage Jade had brought. A beat later, Elysia followed Kyle inside. Before long, the carriage carrying the three of them began moving east again, just as it had before.

***

After the short battle with the barbarians, the carriage carrying Kyle continued east along the mountain path as planned. There had been a brief clash, but the carriage and horses were unharmed, so there was no major problem.

“To think I’d see barbarians with my own eyes in my lifetime...”

“Lady, you weren’t too startled, were you?”

Jade glanced back and deliberately asked in a cheerful tone. Elysia, sitting inside the baggage carriage, shook her head slightly.

“Rather than startled, I am worried. We have not even been in this place for a full day, yet barbarians are already running wild like this...”

“It means the duchy’s situation is more serious than we thought. This isn’t even the main trade route, and barbarians are already roaming around from the entrance of the auxiliary trade route. That means the duchy’s regular army can’t do its job.”

Kyle recalled the barbarians’ numbers and equipment from earlier. It was surprising enough that all of them had been mounted, but their skill was about the same as the regular army of a decent country, if not slightly better.

“Still, come on. What are the duchy’s rangers doing? They were always bragging that they were the strongest troops in the mountains, that even knights had to yield to them and all that.”

Jade grumbled while holding the reins. Elysia, who had been listening, asked the question that came to mind.

“Is that Great Chieftain named Zakan so strong?”

Kyle answered as if it did not matter much.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him myself.”

“But you said the barbarians alone have three thousand fighters.”

“Three thousand in name. They’re spread all over the highlands, so the number we actually run into should be much smaller. They’re still a threat, though.”

“If things are this bad here, the main trade route must be a complete mess.”

Kyle did not deny Jade’s words. The auxiliary trade route was mainly used by small trading convoys, mercenaries, and travelers. Large trade companies had no choice but to use the main trade route because of the size of their processions, so there were bound to be even more barbarians there than here.

“Still, if we go a little farther, there’s a checkpoint.”

Kyle took a map from his coat and looked it over. Throughout the duchy’s highlands, several outposts and fortresses serving as checkpoints had been built along the major trade roads.

“Things should get a little better if we go there and hear what’s going on. Assuming it’s still intact.”

Kyle put the map away and looked toward the rear of the carriage. Before he knew it, streaks of orange had begun to mix into the blue sky.

Dense conifers passed by on the right side of the road as the carriage moved. To the immediate left, water flowed swiftly.

Beyond it were a sloping bank and a forest path. Kyle’s group had passed through a field where flowers bloomed wildly and was now traveling along a narrow valley road. Beneath the clopping of horse hooves, the sound of flowing water mingled in.

The sun will be setting soon.

Kyle looked down at the sword on his knees and the ring on his left hand. The jewel embedded in the center of the white ring had grown much dimmer than when he first obtained it in the Alenos ruins.

It was only natural. He had used more than eighty percent of its mana in the battle against the wyvern knight. Some mana had recovered during the few days of rest, but even then, it had not reached thirty percent. Using his personal magic once had consumed more than half of it.

Until it fills back up to at least halfway, I can’t throw magic around however I want.

Kyle raised his head. Fortunately, he was not alone. In front of him was an excellent mage from the Arven Mage Tower.

“What do we do now? It’ll be evening soon. Should we find a campsite first?”

Just as Elysia tilted her head at Kyle, who was staring intently at her, Jade spoke from the coachman’s seat without looking back.

Kyle answered casually.

“We should. Stop somewhere suitable.”

“Yes, yes. As you command.”

Jade joked in his usual way. Across from Kyle, Elysia carefully parted her lips.

“Kyle. I am only saying this just in case, but...”

“Speak.”

“What if those barbarians do not give up? We only killed some of them earlier, and their main force is still intact.”

Elysia’s concern was reasonable. They had killed several barbarians, but the enemy’s strength remained intact, including the man presumed to be their commander. The lakeshore had not offered much cover, but now things were different. Trees lined both sides of the road with a narrow stream between them. This terrain was perfect for mounted guerrilla warfare.

“If they insist on chasing us, we’ll have to kill them all.”

“...”

“Like now.”

Kyle rose from his seat. When he suddenly stood inside the carriage, Elysia looked puzzled, and even Jade turned back with a questioning voice.

“Kyle?”

“What’s with you all of a sudden?”

Kyle did not answer. He quietly looked toward the back of the carriage.

Not long after, faint dust rose between the pointed conifers. From the forest on the right, from beyond the stream on the left, and from all around them, the sound of horse hooves rang out.

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