Vol 3 Chapter 72 – The Traitor and the Hero【Empire War Arc】

Meanwhile, Haruto had crossed the border and entered the Empire. In a forest in the southeast of imperial territory, he was fighting a man and woman.

The reason things had escalated to this point was that, not long after entering the forest, he had stumbled onto a murder scene.

They say criminals tend to return to the scene of the crime, but in this case the culprit showed up while he was in the middle of checking the dog tags on the corpse. His timing was about as unlucky as it got.

Catching the reflection of an approaching knight in the polished surface of the dog tag, Haruto immediately engaged.

One wore knight’s armor, the other guild staff gear. Given the mismatch between their outfits and their actions, it was obvious these two were up to no good.

“Since you have seen this, I cannot let you live. Die quietly!”

Haruto batted aside the killing thrust aimed at him with the black sword, Demon Sword Laevatein, while warily keeping an eye on the guild worker.

Thanks to his training with Kairo, it was a bit half-baked, but he had at least learned the basic flow of combat. The male knight was the vanguard, the female staffer the rear guard. On the battlefield, it was standard practice for the front liner to stall for time until the back liner’s magic circle was complete.

In the middle of their exchange, the knight suddenly backstepped out of range. The guild woman had both hands pointed toward Haruto, a purple magic circle blooming from her palms.

The spell was finished, and the moment had come for her to unleash it on him. As she spoke the words to send it forth, she uttered the chant that would supposedly cut Haruto down.

“Dark Blessing!!”

In response, Haruto raised one hand and activated a defensive skill.

“—Light Passenger.”

A wall of light spread out from Haruto, shielding him from the oncoming torrent of darkness.

“Dart! Now!”

“Understood! Dark Unleash!!”

In the next instant, the knight’s entire body was wrapped in some black substance—and then he was gone from Haruto’s sight.

“—Right here.”

—Slash.

“—Gh!”

Cut from behind, Haruto dropped to one knee. Forcing his battered body to move, he hurriedly activated a skill focused purely on physical defense.

“Sentinel.”

Clang!

Haruto just barely managed to block the knight’s attack, then drove Laevatein into the ground and unleashed its magic.

Black aura poured from the blade, red lightning occasionally flickering within it.

The knight—Dart, as the woman had called him—was blasted all the way back to her side by the shockwave of magic release. Brushing the snow off himself, he stood and turned a smile on Haruto.

“Heh. I knew I had seen you somewhere before, but I did not expect the hero himself to be here.”

“The hero… You mean the one the kingdom summoned illegally, that hero!?”

“Yeah. The hero I fought at Grentze Fort in the kingdom. That makes this simple. Why do you not join us? You hate that man Roy, do you not?”

Haruto, whose face had remained expressionless until now, twitched slightly at the mention of Roy’s name, but instead of answering the offer, he shifted his gaze to the guild worker.

“The dog tag says ‘Fred’… Why did you kill him?”

“He caught on to my plan and tried to feed information to Roy. Thanks to that, the territory contamination was a failure.”

Ignoring both knight and guild worker, Haruto walked away a short distance. Then he used Holy Magic: Shining Lance to dig a hole.

“Hey! What do you think you are doing!?”

“Burying him. What else?”

Infuriated at being ignored, the knight grabbed Haruto’s shoulder.

But the black aura spilling off Haruto’s body burned Dart’s hand.

“Sorry, but I cannot be your ally. I am in no position to judge, but I cannot trust someone who calmly kills a coworker like that woman did.”

Once he finished burying Fred, Haruto stood and leveled his sword at Dart.

“Negotiations are over. Get out of my sight.”

At those words, the guild worker spread a magic circle and began charging magic. The knight, Dart, once again empowered himself with the same skill he had used earlier.

“Dark Unleash!! Do not think my darkness is inferior to yours!”

Super-charged once more, Dart rushed Haruto as he turned his back.

If Kairo-san had not taught me this, I would have died here.

Haruto swung his sword at Dart as he spun around.

It was the way Kairo had shown him to use Laevatein properly—an ultimate technique, a Mystic Art that imbued the blade with darkness and then unleashed it: Chaotic Blade.

Harvested from the refuse of the world, that darkness was even more fundamental than what Dart and the others wielded, known as Embrace of Darkness, a force that mercilessly culled anything in its way.

The released black torrent swallowed the two of them along its line of fire, then erased the forest for about a hundred meters beyond.

Normally not even bodies would remain, but the pair had survived—just barely. Dart had jammed his longsword into the ground and was using it like a cane, unconscious on his feet.

Looking down at his feet, Haruto saw there was a fan-shaped patch of ground that had not been gouged away. He had probably used a defense-focused magic skill similar to Haruto’s.

The guild worker behind him was in tatters, yet still glaring at Haruto.

“I was on your side not long ago, so I do get how you feel. But you are the ones who misjudged the gap in strength.”

Haruto turned to leave, but as he did, he heard a sound like choked sobbing.

“Why!? Why does nothing go right!? I have the right to get back at them! I was living in peace and they… It is all this stone’s fault!!”

She hurled her staff—set with a black stone—down onto the ground.

Kiiiiiiin!

The thrown staff and Laevatein began to ring in resonance.

“What is that?”

“Dark Matter… We were going to mass-produce it at the Tower of Ars and use it as a token to start an armed uprising.”

Haruto was stunned to hear “Tower of Ars” from the guild worker’s mouth.

“You two… Are you planning to go to the Tower of Ars?”

“Huh? Yeah… we were…”

“Sorry to spring this on you, but could you let me join you?”

The woman’s face flushed bright red and she shouted back at the sudden request.

“Whaaat!? That might have been on the table at the start, but after all this, what are you even thinking!?”

“From another angle, if you have someone like me on your side—someone who can do this—things will go a lot more smoothly.”

“It is too late. The knights assigned to patrol this area will be here any minute, and I doubt I can escape carrying beaten-up Dart.”

“So if we do get away, you will take me in, right?”

“There is no way I can promise that.”

Hoisting Dart up with ease, Haruto held out his hand to the woman. Startled by his sheer physical strength, she could not help but feel a flicker of hope.

Tentatively, she took his hand.

“I am Haruto. It will probably only be for a little while, but nice to meet you.”

“I am Lydia Kingston… For now, I guess… nice to meet you.”

Taking Lydia’s hand, Haruto channeled dark magic and sprinted off across the snowy field.