Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 144

The Fenrir tribe, rulers of the Great Savannah, had two heirs: Skoll and Hati.

Born twins, they had drawn their first breath on the same day and hour, yet they were opposites in every way. Hati’s fur was black as the night sky, while Skoll’s was white as the snow-covered tundra.

Their natures clashed just as starkly. Hati was honest and pure, Skoll sly and cunning. Hati trained in swift, cutting footwork, while Skoll honed in heavy, destructive strikes. From head to toe, there wasn’t a single trait that they shared in common.

Thus, the two had been rivals since childhood. They snarled over the same prey so often it wasn’t even worth pointing out anymore, and more times than they could count on their fingers and toes, their sparring “matches” had landed them in bed with injuries.

They liked different colors. They liked different foods. Most of all, their outlook on the savanna itself was as different as heaven and earth.

Here was a good example of that. In one of the most lavish tents of the Fenrir tribe, a man knelt before Skoll and laid out the gifts he had brought.

“Lord Skoll, please accept this humble token of my respect.”

Gold ornaments and bottles of fine liquor lined the floor. Catching the scent with his lupine nose, Skoll smiled thinly across his sharp features. With all the alcohol he had accepted like this, he couldn’t even imagine getting drunk on mere mare’s milk anymore.

“Not bad. I like it,” he mused, and the merchant who had braved the trade routes of the savanna brightened at once.

“Th-then...!”

Skoll, with an air of generosity, said, “I’ll give you a passage through Fenrir territory. Just bring me half the toll, yourself, directly.”

“Yes, Lord Skoll! I won’t ever let you down!”

“Spare me the words. Show me with your actions.”

Waving him off, Skoll dismissed the merchant, who bowed several times before vanishing outside, leaving behind the pile of bribes.

“Hm.”

Only after he was gone did Skoll stir. He plucked a glittering trinket with hands thickened by martial training, holding it against different parts of his body as if to judge the look. Though a beastkin, the Fenrir were human in appearance apart from their wolf-like legs below the knee.

“Mm. Not bad,” he mused, admiring himself in the tent’s mirror.

Skoll struck pose after pose, pleased with the golden necklace, bracelets, and belt that glittered on him. His handsome looks did most of the work. Without it, he would have looked less like a warrior prince and more like a nouveau riche fool buried under unstylish gold.

After lingering for nearly half an hour, he stripped off the ornaments and seized a bottle of wine. One chop of his hand sent the neck flying with a clean cling!

It wasn’t like he was impatient, or anything. Out here in the heart of the savanna, there was no one else who drank wine; therefore, naturally, no glasses to dream of. And he wasn’t about to drink it from the wooden ladles used for mare’s milk.

A few swallows slid down his throat, and Skoll laughed in satisfaction at the flavor.

“Yes, this is it! Wine! A delicacy the dreary savanna could never provide!”

The Great Savannah could not grow grapevines, and trade with humans was strictly by necessity only. That had been the command of the current Beast King, Varg.

“Father worries too much. If eating and drinking fine things is corruption, then does he think choking down tasteless food is virtue?”

The savanna could sustain the beastkin comfortably, but once food, clothing, and shelter were secure, men sought stimulation. So it was with Skoll. His first taste of wine, his first greed for foreign trinkets—they all came from a hunger for something more.

Born the heir of Fenrir, worshipped by all beastkin, Skoll found everything dull. Hunting was the only pastime, fighting or bedding women the only diversions. Where else, other than the outside world, would he find ecstasy?

One day, a merchant visiting the tribe had slipped him a trove of luxuries under the guise of “presents.”

“Lord Skoll, please accept this gift.”

Skoll had taken them, guilt faint in his chest but quenched by long-starved thirst.

“He wants me to guard the plains until I die. How absurd is that?”

Scoffing at the words drilled into his ears by his father since childhood, he clenched his empty hand.

He wanted them. He wanted the things the savanna did not have, the things he had never possessed.

His sister, content with this tedious life, could never understand. Skoll, however, longed to stride into the wide world beyond. If he gathered the power of the Great Savannah under himself, he believed he could shatter its fence-bound stagnation.

Then, the tent’s shadows stirred oddly.

Sensing it, Skoll spoke. “You’re here, Lord Felis.”

“Heh. Nothing escapes your sharp eyes, young master.”

The shadow shifted into the form of a man. Middle-aged, perhaps. Nearly two meters tall but rather wiry, his presence was sharp rather than heavy—like a single steel awl piercing the air.

This was Felis, chieftain of the Bastet tribe.

“How is the thing going, Lord Felis?”

Even as the Beast King’s son, Skoll did not dare speak down to him. The chieftains of the tribes ranked just below the king himself. Their pact was one of shared purpose, not hierarchy.

“Of course,’ Felis replied, seating himself. “To guard against the unforeseen, I sent no fewer than twenty-three. My own son among them.”

“Twenty-three... That should be more than enough.”

“Yes. Not even Lady Hati’s legs will outrun them all.”

The Bastet were swift among beastkin, and when they employed their Shadow Arts, no one could match them at night. Blending with shadows erased their presence and negated resistance, costing almost no stamina. By day, when half their gift was sealed, perhaps—but in the dark, pursuit was hopeless.

“She won’t die or be gravely harmed?”

“Fear not. I made it clear—the mission is suppression and delay only.”

“Good. My sister and I are not on good terms, but neither do I wish her maimed.”

Skoll chuckled bitterly and set down his emptied bottle. Already, no trace of intoxication remained—his Fenrir physique and expert-level Aura burned it away, leaving only a fleeting whiff of sharp liquor.

Then, a shout came from outside.

“Lord Skoll! Lord Skoll!”

At the approaching presence, Felis melted into shadow at once and vanished. Moments later, a Fenrir warrior burst into the tent.

“Lord Skoll! It’s terrible news!”

Skoll asked coolly, “What is it?”

“Th-the lady has returned! And... she demands to see your face at once...!”

“What...?”

Even the shadows shuddered at the words. If all had gone according to plan, Hati should have been caught by the elite Bastets and kept from returning until after the council of chieftains. However, not only had she come back a day early—she had come looking for him.

A chill of foreboding crept through Skoll. That was when he heard the voice that he had feared to hear.

“Skooooll! You bastard! Where are you hiding?!”

Seemingly having gotten closer while Skoll was deep in thought, Hati’s furious voice rang through the tent walls, closer now, blazing with rage from crown to tail.

“My sister. You never fail to pull the unexpected...”

With a long sigh, Skoll rose. Now that Hati had made a public scene, silence would only mean admitting to his scheming. He stepped out of the tent, unwillingly.

At once, his eyes met hers across the way. Brother and sister, reunited after some time apart, glared at each other with burning malice.

“Skoll! You conniving bastard! You conspired with the Bastet to set me up! Afraid to fight me in earnest, you stooped to tricks! At this point, it shames me to call you my twin!”

“You still bark nonsense as well as ever, sister! Where did you pick up such slander? Bring me proof, a witness, anything—and then try barking again!”

Their snarling brought the villagers running, though none looked shocked or alarmed. Skoll and Hati’s spats were a weekly, monthly, yearly spectacle. Some bet on the outcome, others chuckled as though watching children squabble.

“A witness, you say?! Fine words, you pale mutt!”

“If I’m pale, you’re pitch black! Do you insult our mother, who bore us so?”

“What?! When did I ever insult Mother?!”

“Just now!”

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

For heirs to the tribe, their quarrel was pitiful, but to the onlookers it was a familiar comedy. To them, Skoll and Hati were the Fenrir’s symbols, but also children they had all but raised ever since they were tiny pups.

Finally, driven into a corner, Hati pulled out her trump card.

“You asked for a witness!”

“I did! And what of it?!”

“Then look here!”

With a snarl, Hati hoisted a Bastet tribesman bound hand and foot, lifted him high so all could see, then flung him to the ground. The poor wretch foamed at the mouth.

Skoll’s eyes widened in shock. “Wh-what?! How?!”

It was the Bastet heir, the very one Felis had boasted of mere minutes ago, lying there in disgrace.

However, Skoll recovered quickly, plastering on a shameless face and shouting, “Sister! However much you despise him, how could you brutalize the heir of another tribe?!”

Hati’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

“Huh?”

As if he had been waiting for his moment, Felis himself stepped forward from the crowd, pleading, “Precisely! How could you, Lady Hati!”

The Bastet chieftain’s infamy for cunning was well earned, and his brazen denial was flawless. With a pained expression, he cried out, “Lady Hati! How could you do this to my son? Is this how you treat the Bastet tribe?!”

“H—he attacked me! He’s the culprit—”

“Spare us your excuses!”

Seizing the chance, Felis lunged. As befit a Bastet chieftain, his speed was monstrous. While Hati reeled under his sudden accusation, he aimed to snatch back his son. Once in his grasp again, none but the Beast King himself could press the matter further.

His shadowy hand shot forward—

“Not so fast.”

When a boot pinned it down. Caught off guard by Karen’s Shadow Step, Felis froze. In that instant, Hati snapped out of the moment of panic and pulled his son behind her, and only then did Karen lift her foot.

“Who are you people?!” Felis snarled, eyes blazing with shock and hatred.

Until now, he had focused only on Hati and overlooked the three humans behind her. Of course, it was Leon and his party.

Hati stepped forward to block Felis. “They’re adventurers from the Guild.”

“The Guild? Adventurers?”

“Yes. My honored guests. Any further insult will not be tolerated.”

“Hmph.”

With her warning, Felis held back. Instead, Skoll, who had been watching, spoke up.

“You would bring outsiders into the savanna’s affairs? Do you think Father will allow this?”

“That’s up to Father to decide. It’s not for a cowardly pale mutt like you to snarl about.”

“You bitch! You dare run your mouth at me?!”

“Shall we settle this right now?!”

Both siblings stepped forward, their Auras flaring. Leon’s party did not intervene as this was a matter between heirs. To interfere would be seen as foul play. Their role was only to keep Felis and the warmongers from meddling.

Will Hati win? Leon asked inwardly.

El-Cid answered, —Hard to say. Their skills are nearly even. Odds are fifty-fifty. Without a decisive trigger, they’d trade blows all day.

Both had mastered the same art, Sirius, and surely knew each other’s strengths and tactics. With no difference in skill, the fight could drag on endlessly.

The crowd leaned forward, eager for the clash to begin, a single gust swept over them with a woosh. It pressed on the backs of skilled warriors, chilling, yet vast and natural in presence.

Elahan spread her hand, ready to summon the Holy Iron Breaker. Karen sank her legs into shadow, bracing for an ambush that she deemed undefendable.

Leon only marveled. There was no malice in it. If anything, it carried a strange sense of kinship.

“Enough.”

At that word, Skoll and Hati froze, the crowd fell silent, and heads bowed low. None dared meet the speaker’s gaze.

The apex of the Fenrir. The pinnacle of the savanna. Even with only his back to see, Leon felt the weight of it.

So this was the Beast King, Varg.

It was the same feeling he’d had before Irexana—a sense of utter dominance. Truly, this was a power fit to represent an entire people.

Varg looked between his children, his voice commanding.

“Listen to me.”