Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 151

The four chieftains who had spoken as members of the peace faction, along with those aligned with the war faction and even the neutral clans, all stared wide-eyed. The leader of an opposing faction had not only withdrawn her own words but overturned them outright. Several chieftains, unable to process the sudden reversal, wore absurdly twisted expressions.

Was it a joke? No. Hati’s expression was far too serious.

Unable to restrain himself, Bulls, the war faction chieftain of the Taurus, cautiously spoke.

“Lady Hati?”

“Yes?” Hati responded casually, as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb.

“Had you not always argued for peace with the nomads? Why suddenly reverse yourself?”

The audience in the gallery nodded along, waiting for her answer. With everyone’s eyes upon her, Hati clenched her fists.

“Because Chieftain Totuga is not wrong.”

It was an undeniable truth that the nomads had breached their territory more than once. Had such incursions come from another beastkin tribe, it would already have been washed away in blood.

Only because it was an outside power, only because the desert was too harsh to launch reprisals, had there been restraint. However, the grounds for retaliation—casus belli—were undeniable.

Hati continued, “Chieftain Alice was right—this war will gain us nothing.”

Suppose the twelve tribes marched as one into the desert, slew every Bedouin warrior, and seized the sands. Their territory might nearly double in size. However, that expansion would be meaningless.

The barren desert could not grow plants for the herbivorous beastkin, nor provide even a quarter of the meat consumed daily by the carnivorous tribes. A land bought with blood, and yet utterly useless—such was the desert’s value.

Hati, however, wasn’t finished.

“Chieftain Basil was right as well. Even if we advance into the desert, there is no advantage to be had.”

Beastkin required several times the food and water humans did. No matter how well and carefully supply lines were prepared, they would quickly reach their limits once they left the plains.

Unaccustomed to the desert, ignorant of its beasts and their lairs, the beastkin would find foraging even harder. They would struggle not just against the Bedouins, but against hunger and thirst.

After laying out reason upon reason against war, Hati raised her voice to deny them herself.

“But! Since when have we weighed gains and losses when our land was trampled? Since when have we meekly sheathed our fangs because we thought ourselves disadvantaged?”

It was irrational, but the peace faction’s logic could be undone with a single line. In truth, wars throughout history had more often begun for irrational reasons than reasonable ones.

Because of ambition beyond one’s station. Because of grudges forgotten by name. Because pride was wounded in diplomacy.

Petty causes, so shameful they had to be dressed in noble pretexts. Hati tore her gaze from the chieftains and shouted to the crowd.

“The grass of the plains we stand upon has been crushed beneath the hooves of the intruders’ camels! As Chieftain Totuga said, this begging beyond all bounds must be ended by smashing their bowl to pieces!”

The voice of a beautiful and powerful woman could at times bear charisma that surpassed any man’s. Some felt a thrill of admiration. Others, unable to stomach being outshone, stiffened with pride. Each time her voice rang out, bold and resounding, the hall heated, the will to fight swelling until it seemed ready to burst with the prick of a needle.

“War!”

She cried, and the crowd echoed her. Their eyes rolled white with fervor. Had this been a speech on the eve of battle, the beastkin would already have been an army flushed with zeal.

The war faction, robbed of their words, could only clap blankly. The peace faction, struck dumb, trembled in outrage, jaws hanging open. Even Skoll—and Varg himself—blinked in stunned bewilderment. Was this how bloodshed with the nomads would begin?

“But, again.”

Her soft words cut through the fever. Those who had been swept up by her cries fell silent, the chieftains included.

Unpredictable words and gestures seized every gaze. And from the start, that was Hati’s intent.

“What if this war, this struggle where we stake pride and honor, is nothing more than someone’s base little game?”

The anger, fanned into a blaze, turned with her words.

“What if cowards with not even the courage to show their faces mean to soil us with the blood of the starving and the thirsty? Shall we be led along by their sordid trickery, stacking the corpses of our kin like puppets on their strings?”

Hati threw up her palm and cried out, “No! I will not. We will not! Never again shall we be slaves. Better to spit in the face of their schemes and make them choke on it than be footstools for nameless vermin!”

At last, the chieftains understood her aim, and their faces shifted again. The specter of a third power’s hand. The humiliation and fury of being used. Played.

Hati’s speech pierced the beastkin where they could not endure—shaping a foe more hateful than the nomads themselves. She was not rejecting war but changing the enemy. It was a tactic the war faction had never foreseen.

As the mood spiraled out of control, Skoll hurriedly cut in.

“Wait! You say this war with the nomads is someone’s scheme? What proof do you have! Sister, you cannot dare speak lies in this assembly!”

“Proof?” Hati paused for a beat, then shouted boldly. “There is none!”

“What?!”

“Stories passed along by trusted sources, circumstantial evidence—none of it is acceptable proof. The only basis I can present is the blood that runs in my veins, and the pride passed down from our great-grandfather!”

“Absurd sophistry...!”

Skoll started to retort, but fell silent. She was his one and only twin. To insult her blood and her pride was no different from denying his own lineage.

“That’s unlike you, Sister. Quite the cunning ploy.”

Perhaps thanks to Hati’s unexpected strategy, the heat that had risen in him cooled somewhat. If she used blood and pride as her shield, then he, too, could target the same. Returning to a calm expression, Skoll spoke.

“Blood and pride—you mean to stake your lineage to guarantee the truth?”

“That’s right.”

“And with your life alone, you would sway the plains and all our kin? Have you never thought of that as arrogance?”

Now it was Hati’s turn to stiffen. Sensing the tide turning his way, Skoll pressed on.

“You are neither chief nor king. Beyond your own life, what price can you possibly pay? Answer me, Sister. Why should we listen to you?”

“...”

“Did those humans whisper into your ear? Or perhaps you made a friend in the desert?”

“You dare mock me?!”

Eyes blazing, Hati growled at Skoll’s sneer. The assembly fell silent once again, as though doused in cold water. Heated, cooled, and heated again—the cycle repeated until even the spectators began to think more soberly.

The balance had not yet tipped. Whichever side seized the flow would win. Sensing this, several chieftains prepared to speak—when suddenly:

“I, Leon—”

With a sharp ring, Leon drew his sword and drove the blade into the center of the round table for all to see.

“—am willing to prove her words through honorable combat! By my sword and by my master’s name, any who doubt may test the truth upon this blade!”

It was something Hati had told him the night before. The most primal rule of the chieftains’ assembly: When words were unclear, the side that triumphed in fair combat would have its claim accepted.

“An outsider dares say such things...!”

“Ridiculous.”

“Does a foreigner presume to invoke the law of the savannah?”

Chieftain Totuga of the Urus clan gave the decisive scoff.

“No matter how great your sword or your master, it cannot compare to an oath sworn on bloodline. Stop this clumsy pretense.”

At that moment, the Beast King Varg, who had been quietly watching the quarrel, broke in with a questioning rumble.

“Hm? Unfortunately, I cannot overlook that comment, Totuga.”

“W-what do you mean, my king?”

“He is of my same school. To deny his master is no different from denying my grandfather himself.”

At Varg’s words, the chieftains’ eyes shifted—shock, confusion, disbelief. However, one man alone stared straight ahead with unshaken fervor.

“Kahahaha! Excellent! Couldn’t be better!”

It was Urakan, chieftain of the Tigris clan and strongest of the war faction. Looking from one face to the next, he made his declaration.

“If he is the king’s associate, that name alone is enough weight. And since the king has permitted his place in the assembly, to dismiss him as a foreigner would be disgraceful. So—I have a proposal.”

“Let’s hear it, Urakan,” said Varg with a nod of assent.

“The numbers, as fate would have it, are even. Young Master Skoll with three chieftains on this side; Lady Hati with three guests on that side. What better situation for honorable combat to decide? Four duels. Whichever side wins more, their words shall stand.”

“So it is. What say you, daughter?” Varg turned to his daughter.

“I accept,” Hati answered without retreating an inch from the grim proposal.

Four against four. Four duels to prove their claims. Skoll scowled at Urakan’s interference, but soon his face relaxed with confidence. They could not possibly lose.

Varg rose, having confirmed both sides’ agreement.

“Then the duel is established. The side with more victories will have its opinion prevail. If the wins are equal, the victors shall fight again to decide. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

“Indeed.” 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“Then so be it.”

Raising his voice so none in the gallery could miss it, Varg declared, “Prepare for the duel!”

***

The preparations for the duel were finished in an instant. The massive round table set in the center of the clearing vanished somewhere, leaving behind an empty space at least fifty meters across. It was clearly a void left for this very purpose—to become a battlefield should words fail.

Watching the grounds being readied in only a few minutes, Hati turned to Leon’s group with a look of apology.

“Forgive me. I wanted to work it out with words if possible...”

She had thought Skoll was nothing more than a mouthpiece for the war faction, but his gift of speech had proved formidable. Not only had he disrupted the atmosphere she had carefully built, but he had also perfectly provoked her as well.

Was it simply the cunning that defined his nature? Either way, she had ended up dragging Leon and the others into trouble.

“It’s fine,” Leon said with a crooked smile, trying to ease her guilt. “As your father said, showing our strength once might actually make it easier to secure our place. More importantly, we should decide who fights first. Personally, I’d like to test myself against that tiger beastkin, Urakan.”

“I don’t care who I face,” Elahan said evenly.

“I feel the same,” added Karen.

Hati clearly intended to face Skoll herself, so it didn’t take long to decide the matchups. The group looked out at the clearing. It was spotless now, as if waiting for two warriors to step forward.

From across the field, heavy footsteps rumbled. A massive figure emerged, bull-headed and carrying a giant axe in each hand. Bulls, the chieftain of the Taurus Tribe. He would be the first to fight.

“Oh? Looks like I’m up first.”

Karen leaped nimbly into the arena. From the look of him, Bulls relied entirely on raw muscle and the sheer weight of his weapons—a perfect prey for someone specialized in speed and stealth like her.

Of course, strength could not be judged by appearance alone. Bulls flared his nostrils—larger than coins—and gave a guttural snort.

“Krrgh! A flimsy reed of a female. Are you ready to be the rust on my twin axes?”

“And what about you? Finished plowing your fields already? No nose ring—guess your master must be a pretty nice person.”

“W-what?! What did you just say!?”

For someone raised in back alleys, trading insults was everyday life. Asking after parents who didn’t exist was routine. Just a few words from Karen, and Bulls’ face flushed scarlet.

Fury. The special ability of the Taurus Tribe—it multiplied their already immense strength severalfold. Power erupted from him at once. Struggling to restrain his urge to strike immediately, Bulls turned toward Varg, standing at the edge of the field to act as referee.

Did the Beast King understand his boiling impatience? Well, he said the exact word that Bulls was hoping to hear.

“Begin!”

The instant Varg gave the word, Bulls charged. With a meaningless, beastly roar, his twin axes whipped through the air.

Up, down, left, right. He hacked, lifted, swung, tore, and ripped. Even a grazing blow could shatter rock. Bulls was certain these strikes would butcher the insolent woman. The lack of resistance under his blades, he chalked up to her fragility.

Die and regret your arrogance, weak female!

The whirlwind of fifty consecutive swings sent dust billowing, forming a vortex around him. Finally, pain shot through his forearms, and he stopped. That should have been enough.

Fury was powerful but taxing. He couldn’t afford to ruin his body in a fit of rage.

Then, from above the halted axe head came a voice, bored and unimpressed.

“Tch. Is that it? I was just starting to enjoy myself.”

Impossible. Eyes bulging, Bulls looked up.

There she was—standing lightly atop the blade of his axe without the slightest weight, gazing down at him in mockery.

So, ignorance truly was bliss? Unfortunately for Bulls, Karen had no intention of sparing him. She smiled as her eyes met his wide, disbelieving stare.

“What, you didn’t notice?”

From the very first moment, when his axe had slammed down—

“I’ve been right here all along.”