Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 90

Kasim finally came to his senses after nearly an hour of rampaging.

“Ahem... apologies. I’ve shown you a disgraceful sight on our first meeting,” he said.

If anything, it was understandable, considering that three hundred years of effort with a sole goal in mind had just gone to waste. Even so, he had somehow managed to control his strength well enough that Leon hadn’t been caught in the destruction.

“It’s fine. I get how you feel,” Leon waved off his apology, and naturally, averted his eyes.

The area looked like a meteor had hit. The once heavenly scenery around the waterfall had long since turned into a wasteland.

With every unrestrained punch or kick, the earth overturned, and storms raged. Trees tougher than most metals had snapped like reeds, and the flying debris had soared past the horizon—the thought still made Leon shudder.

No wonder people regard him as untouchable...

Someone who could fight against a thousand men alone and someone who ten thousand couldn’t fight against were entirely different things.

Not even a Swordmaster, the pinnacle of humanity’s strength, was that dangerous. Even if one trained their body and built up Aura to the point of being able to slay a thousand men alone, taking down an entire army single-handedly was impossible.

Even after reaching the Master level, limits in stamina and Aura still existed, and a Swordmaster’s overwhelming power was still confined to those limits. The Giant King Kasim, before him, however, was not.

It wouldn’t matter if you brought ten thousand—or even a million. If they’re below Expert level, his recovery is faster than any stamina they’d drain. Even without armor, he could shrug off a full cavalry charge. A war of attrition would mean nothing against him.

Only by fielding multiple Master level fighters or seventh-tier archmages could one hope to pose a threat. And even then, they would only be a slight threat—not assured victory.

The ogre ancestry already gave them strong magic resistance, and the Giant King’s martial strength surpassed that of a Master. Even the empire, with over a dozen Master-level fighters, wouldn’t dare such a reckless challenge.

—I did a decent job, huh?

Leon ignored El-Cid’s nonsense and met Kasim’s gaze. Then he finally asked the question that had been stuck in his throat.

“May I call you... brother?”

“Hm.”

Kasim looked slightly surprised at the title, his face momentarily stiffening. The word brother, coming out of Leon’s mouth, inevitably reminded him of Rodrick.

After a moment of pondering, he soon nodded and answered, “Go ahead. I don’t like admitting that man was my master, but we did inherit the same martial lineage.”

Perhaps recognizing Leon as his junior, Kasim relaxed his tone and sat down on a tree stump. Anyone else hearing this would’ve made a huge fuss. An audience with the living legend, the Giant King—and to be acknowledged as a brother? Regardless of his skill, Leon’s connection alone would make him a top-priority recruit.

Though neither of them cared about that.

“There’s one last thing I want to confirm,” Kasim said.

“Yes, go ahead.”

Kasim looked cautiously at Leon and spoke.

“Rodrick is a...?”

It was a cryptic question, but Leon understood immediately. It was a primal, instinctive response.

He answered, “Dickhead...?”

“Amazing! From this day on, Leon—you’re my one and only sworn brother!”

Kasim sprang to his feet, grabbed Leon, and tossed him into the air with a triumphant shout. Leon screamed as he was thrown over twenty meters, but Kasim caught and tossed him again and again, muttering to himself.

“At last, someone who’ll badmouth that asshole with me! No one else believed me, no matter how many times I told them. How is Rodrick, that maniac, a hero?! He just blundered around doing whatever he wanted, and things just happened to work out!”

There’s a saying in old lore—zhiyin, which is what a famed musician called his closest friend, who was the only one who could truly understand his music. To Kasim, that soulmate was Leon.

“How could the Goddess be so cruel?! Why did she choose that lunatic to lead my people? Tell me, my brother—do you know why I have an X-shaped scar on my chest?”

“I’m afraid I do not.”

“Haah! After all the times I’ve shouted about it, not a single record left behind—I guess history really is written by the victors!”

Kasim hurled Leon again and let out a deep lament.

“It was over three hundred years ago.”

It was around the time the first Titan begged the Goddess for mercy and received the blessing of wisdom for his kin. The Goddess gave him the name “Kasim” and delivered a divine message: “Kasim, follow the one I send and fulfill your mission.”

It was just one sentence, but Kasim vowed to etch it into his soul and waited for the Goddess’s agent. And as the benevolent Goddess promised, “he” soon came to the Titans. A young man with hair and eyes bright like the sun and his presence screaming, “I am the Hero.”

“I still remember it clearly. He asked, ‘Who’s the leader?’” Kasim recalled.

At that, he had proudly stepped forward. The rest of his kin had just gained wisdom and were like children. There were no other candidates.

Then Rodrick had given him a quick once-over and said, “You all look the same. Can’t tell who’s who.”

Kasim had been dumbfounded by that. It was true that Titans didn’t vary much in appearance compared to humans, but not so much that one couldn’t tell them apart. He hadn’t realized what Rodrick was actually getting at.

What the Holy King did immediately after that caught Kasim completely off guard.

“Grahh! W-why...?! Aren’t you the Goddess’s chosen one, the teacher for our people?!”

“That’s that. This has nothing to do with that.”

There had been no time to dodge or block. Rodrick had already surpassed even Swordmasters back then, and Kasim had been far weaker than he was now.

Rodrick had carved that X into Kasim’s chest, stood over his fallen body, and said, “Why are you speaking so informally, huh? You’re being awfully rude.”

“W-what?! You talked informally first—

“Because I can.”

Rodrick had yawned, kicked Kasim in the jaw, and muttered as he passed out, “I can tell by your responses that you’ve got some backbone. Maybe I’ll work you over properly.”

That was the moment Kasim’s personal hell began. As he recounted the story, his fists clenched and trembled with rage, and the unconscious pressure distorted the very space around him.

Leon couldn’t even offer words of comfort—he simply looked down at his sword belt and thought, Seriously... is that something a decent person should do?

Even El-Cid, for once, had no excuse and changed the subject.

—Well, I had my rebellious phase, too.

Rebellious? More like a walking disaster! I knew you were wild back in the day, but not this wild!

—Hey, I was even younger than you are now back then. Kids get into trouble, and they grow, don’t they?

Wait—you were younger than me?!

—When I first met that guy? I was seventeen, I think.

Leon looked at the Holy Sword as if wondering if this thing was even human. So it was true he’d broken through the Master’s wall at fifteen?

And fights are supposed to be about hitting and getting hit. You were probably just doing the hitting, huh? That’s not a fight, that’s a one-sided beating.

—Hm. Can’t argue with that.

Don’t just accept it—show some remorse!

Leon felt completely drained after just a few minutes. Kasim was still huffing to vent his rage, and Leon followed behind him, silently mourning the past of his new brother, who had aged three hundred years since the tragedy.

It was no wonder the resentment had festered. Anyone would be the same if no one believed them after they went through all that. Fortunately, with Leon throwing in the occasional agreement and joining in on bashing Rodrick, Kasim’s expression began to soften.

“Whew. Thanks to you, I feel a bit better. Appreciate it, brother.”

“Anytime, brother...”

The man and Titan, now connected by a bond that transcended eras, bumped fists with a light smack.

“We’re almost there. This way.”

Kasim beckoned Leon into a cave hidden behind the waterfall. With every step deeper, the mana density surged. It was enough to make breathing difficult for ordinary people.

“If it’s Rodrick’s legacy you’re after, it should all be in here. He said he’d come get it sometime, but he never did,” Kasim said.

“Well, that guy spouted nonsense every time he opened his mouth.”

“Kwahaha! You’re right—nonsense every time!”

Anyone who had tried to meet the Giant King would’ve kicked themselves if they saw this. They probably could’ve built a rapport just by joining in on the Rodrick hate. The two, now fast friends, soon arrived at their destination.

“Wow...!”

Leon’s eyes widened at the sight. Of course they did. A fantastical landscape stretched across a vast clearing with an open ceiling—something one would never expect inside a cave.

Flowers scattered rainbow-colored petals, and a tree bore golden apples that glowed like sunlight. All around were rare spiritual herbs and plants.

“Those are the herbs that bastard planted to keep himself healthy. It’s been over three hundred years, so they should be way more potent than they were back then.”

—Ah, I forgot about that.

“There’s more than just elixirs. He left behind martial arts scrolls, Aura refinement manuals, treatises on physical conditioning, and more. We Titans couldn’t make use of them, but there should be a lot of good information for you.”

—Oh, right, that stuff. Not that important, though.

As El-Cid casually added to Kasim’s explanations, Leon felt a twinge of suspicion. If the elixirs and martial arts manuals had slipped his mind, what was the real legacy?

And was that bit about “forgetting” really true? As he wondered, a chill crawled up Leon’s spine.

Hey, cursed sword, he called.

—Yeah?

If these elixirs and the manuals were all forgotten, they couldn’t have been the legacy. Then... what’s the real legacy? I’m getting a feeling you were lying about forgetting what it was.

El-Cid fell silent, then chuckled.

—Oops. Busted?

It was a different tone than usual, so Leon tensed up further. El-Cid played plenty of pranks, sure, but this wasn’t the kind of thing worth hiding. The truth would come out anyway, so why lie?

Could it be that the timing of revealing it was the point?

Kasim turned to him with a heavy expression as if he’d guessed the whole situation.

“Looks like you heard everything,” he muttered while his eyes were filled with a single emotion—pity.

Sincere sympathy for his junior, who would now suffer as he once did. As Leon instinctively took a step back, a voice echoed from his waist—a new trick of El-Cid’s, reproducing his voice through vibration.

“Hey, lunk. Think you can handle this?”

He was asking Kasim.

“Never tried it before, so I can’t say. But I’ll do my best.”

“As long as he doesn’t die, I can patch him up somehow. Just make sure you hold back a bit—don’t aim for the head or heart.”

“Understood.”

Leon shivered at the terrifying exchange and asked, “W-wait. What’s going on here?”

“Well, you see....” El-Cid trailed off guiltily.

And what followed was even more absurd. Leon had laid the groundwork with Rodrick’s Vision and Footwork and even trained his body with advanced sword techniques like the Grand Chariot. So far, things were going great. The problem was the next step.

“From now on, you’re going to be training psychokinesis,” El-Cid said.

Not telekinesis—psychokinesis. A power where the mind transcends the body and interferes with the physical world. A power one could access after becoming an Aura Master.

“But if you wait until then, it’s only half-baked. Without learning it, you’ll never glimpse what comes after being a Master. You’d spend your whole life as a frog in a well, never knowing how big the sky is.”

“Okay, cool—psychokinesis, sure. But...” Wiping away cold sweat, Leon rewound the conversation in his head and asked, “Why hide it? Is the training dangerous or something?”

“Ugh, lunk. You explain it.”

“Dickhead.”

Grumbling at El-Cid’s request, Kasim still obliged with a slow explanation.

“Brother, psychokinesis is the power of pure spirit. Physical strength and Aura don’t matter—only the mind. But it’s incredibly hard for physical beings to awaken it. After becoming a Master, when the mind and body start to transcend this world, it’s easier. But before that... It’s almost impossible.”

“If it’s almost impossible, it’s... possible?”

“That monster sitting on your waist managed it himself, but there’s no way to awaken it through self-study. That’s probably why he sent you to me...”

With a sigh, Kasim revealed the truth.

“There’s only one way to train psychic force. Drain yourself of every drop of stamina and Aura—then push your body to the absolute limit. Repeat that over and over to induce its awakening. That’s all.”

“Can you dumb it down for me...?”

“You get pushed to the brink of death, over and over, until it kicks in. That’s the only training method.”

Leon stood frozen, and El-Cid’s telepathy poked at his mind like a jab. His voice wasn’t smug, but it was insufferably annoying.

—Why do you think I didn’t tell you what the legacy was?

“...”

—I figured if I told you, you’d refuse to come. But hey, I did it for your own good, so don’t hate me too much.

“...”

—Sorry!

“You goddamned cursed sword!”

Leon’s patience snapped, and he hurled the Holy Sword to the ground.