By Zephyria His chilling voice, as fierce as the cold air of the frozen crater, spread out, and everyone held their breath.
Hugo stared into his fierce eyes, recalling the moment when he had put firewood into the dying campfire last night. Like the flames that blazed fiercely again when firewood was added, his sharp eyes, which he hadn’t seen in a while, were seething as if to devour him.
Of course, it would be a lie to say that he didn’t know this would happen. He just hoped he wouldn’t notice.
Leonardo was convinced that his prediction was correct due to Hugo’s continued silence. Once he was convinced, there was no need to hear an answer. Leonardo listed what he had been guessing as if he was grilling him.
“You were wondering if I would recklessly use magic power without being able to control it properly.”
“……”
“You thought it was a good opportunity because it would be easier for you to control me if I was in the water. That’s why you didn’t show up right away even though you had already arrived nearby and just watched.”
He twisted his lips into a sneer.
“You thought I wouldn’t be able to feel your magic power?”
Unlike his burning eyes, the voice coming from his mouth was extremely cold.
Flynn was restless and looked back and forth between Leonardo’s coldly enraged face and the commander’s calm face.
It was he who had continued to put pressure on Leonardo, who was reluctant to step forward, and had given him the look that he needed help.
And although it was true that the commander had told him to watch the situation for a while after arriving here, it seemed that he had said that because the battle was already in full swing, and he didn’t seem to have had the intention of testing him from the beginning.
Flynn knew that the commander was constantly worrying about Leonardo’s unstable control and paying attention to him.
So, he felt a sense of self-reproach, thinking that if he hadn’t created the situation for Leonardo to go into the water in the first place, he wouldn’t have gotten angry like this, and that anger wouldn’t have been directed at the commander.
“Blaine, that’s, well…”
Just as Flynn was about to try to explain, Squad Leader 8, who had been watching Leonardo unilaterally pouring out his anger and his superior, who was the target of that anger, opened his mouth to correct the strangely flowing atmosphere.
“Leonardo Blaine, I acknowledge that you were a great help in rescuing our squad member. I am grateful for that. But what you are saying now is a very disrespectful statement, and there is a clear fallacy.”
Leonardo frowned and turned his gaze to her. Flynn also stopped talking and looked at her. She met Leonardo’s eyes and continued to speak confidently.
“The legion commander’s participation in the battle is for the purpose of achieving the subjugation of the Elder Milli Peninsula, and it is not something you can presumptuously say as if it is natural for him to do so just because you dared to step forward. Also, the reason why he didn’t bother to step forward is because he judged that it was something we could handle well enough on our own. Even if he did test you, it was also something he judged to be necessary for the safety of the whole. Refrain from making any more rude remarks to the legion commander.”
Leonardo’s eyebrows twitched. And he coldly retorted.
“So, even though I found out that you tested me, I should just shut up rationally because it’s for the sake of the greater good?”
Another moment of silence flowed at his words. Leonardo chuckled again with a look of disbelief and said.
“And what? Necessary for safety? Am I going to kill you guys or something?”
“Blaine!”
Squad Leader 8 glared fiercely at Leonardo and raised his voice at the extremely sarcastic words. However, Leonardo completely ignored her words and only stared at Hugo as if telling him to say it himself.
Hugo, who met his eyes, sighed softly. Then, he opened his mouth, which had been closed all along, and said in a low voice.
“I won’t make excuses.”
The squad members’ eyes widened at the commander’s voice. Flynn and Squad Leader 8 also looked at him with slightly surprised eyes.
In the frozen atmosphere, Hugo continued to speak in a calm tone.
“It’s true that I tried to test you.”
“Ha―.”
Leonardo didn’t know whether to thank him for admitting it so readily or to laugh in disbelief. But he immediately gritted his teeth and glared sharply at Hugo, demanding in a low voice.
“Why the hell do you need that, do you still not trust me?”
Hugo, who was watching his agitated demeanor, turned his head to Squad Leader 8 for a moment and said.
“Squad Leader Russell, thank you for conveying my position on my behalf. But this time, I’d like to talk to Leonardo directly, so would you excuse us for a moment?”
Squad Leader 8 looked back and forth between the two of them, and only after Hugo sent him a reassuring wink did he give a short nod and step back slightly. Then, he gestured to the squad members behind him to step back as well.
Squad Leader 8 led the squad members away to a distance where they could no longer hear the two men’s conversation. After confirming them, Hugo turned his gaze to Leonardo, who was still glaring at him with an angry expression, and continued to speak.
“Leonardo, what I was worried about was not that you would harm the squad members, but that problems could arise even if you didn’t intend to. And the situation just now was a good opportunity to get a relatively safe glimpse of that. As you said, if you’re in the water, your control is unstable, so even if a situation arises where you can’t control yourself, I can control it for you instead.”
Hugo spoke calmly, but Leonardo’s momentum became even fiercer.
“I said I don’t need that, I said I’ll take care of it myself!”
Hugo sighed softly and closed his eyes tightly, then opened them, as if the uncontrollable fire was surging even to him.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with your opinion. When I watched your battle underwater, I noticed several instances where your magic power control was still unstable. And there was even a dangerous moment once. You must have felt it too.”
At Hugo’s words, Leonardo recalled the moment when he had felt something strange. The moment when he reflexively launched a ranged attack after seeing the demon beast’s poison dart heading towards Squad Leader 8. He had hastily put up a barrier in front of them because he thought the scale would be considerable.
What Leonardo found strange at the time was that the underwater explosion and the resulting whirlpool were much smaller than he had predicted.
Leonardo, who had felt Hugo’s subtle magic power at the time, was able to tell at once that he was nearby. And that he was watching him, reducing the scale of the underwater explosion, and testing his abilities.
Leonardo felt it was more of a deception than gratitude.
“I could have stopped it even if you hadn’t intervened. I already put up a barrier before the explosion, and there was no dangerous moment.”
“Well, I can’t agree with that.”
Leonardo’s expression crumpled at Hugo’s firm words.
The reason Hugo said that was because he had intervened in more ways than just that moment.
Even at the moment the demon beast collided with the lake’s wall, he reduced the impact on both sides by using the resistance of the water, and when Leonardo shattered the demon beast, he reduced the shock waves spreading around so that other members wouldn’t get caught up in it.
However, he didn’t bother to list those facts in front of him.
But Leonardo wasn’t just angry because he felt his abilities were being doubted and tested; there was another anger he didn’t want to bring out.
He bit his lip, as if he was afraid the words would come out without him realizing it, and roughly swept back his hair as if frustrated. He seemed to be forcibly controlling his emotions, but when he met Hugo’s resolute gaze, he suppressed his emotions and spoke in a trembling voice.
“You said you’d trust me.”
Hugo paused slightly at his words. Hearing the slightly trembling voice, he felt that his distorted face wasn’t just because of anger.
Leonardo looked into his eyes and blurted out what he didn’t want to say.
“If you said you’d trust me, you should have been the only one who trusted me, even if all the other bastards didn’t. That I wouldn’t hurt other people, that I—”
‘How hard I tried not to hurt them.’
Leonardo bitterly swallowed the rest of his words. Agrizendro wouldn’t know, but he had worked tirelessly to prevent the members from getting injured from the moment he jumped into the water.
Not only to eliminate the targets in front of him, but also to deploy a barrier in that instant when the demon beast collided with the lake wall.
Even when he was angry knowing that Agrizendro was testing him, he put his arm inside the body when dealing with the last demon beast to check that there was no acid, and deliberately detonated the demon beast at close range to minimize the shock waves spreading around.
However, Leonardo also didn’t bother to list those facts in front of him.
Hugo looked at him with a slightly complicated expression at his words about trust, then opened his mouth.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
But Leonardo couldn’t stop the emotions that were about to explode and expressed them to him as if pouring them out.
“If you weren’t going to trust me, why did you take off the handcuffs in the first place? No, why did you bring me here in the first place?”
“……”
“Why didn’t you just leave me in prison, why did you bring me here?”
“Leonardo.”
As his emotions seemed to be escalating, Hugo called his name in a somewhat heavy and solemn voice. Leonardo paused at the cold tone, but at the same time bit his lip tightly and thought.
‘Like a fool, only I. Only I felt a sense of kinship, only I felt a bond. In the water where I’m most vulnerable, I fought anxiously worrying that my magic would involve the others. But that person is watching how I act again, analyzing, and in the end doesn’t even trust me. I’m the only one who trusted. Like a damn fool.’
Hugo took a step towards Leonardo, but Leonardo glared at him and took a step back. Hugo looked at him and stopped approaching, standing in his place and saying.
“It’s true that I tested you, but it’s not because I don’t trust you. I trusted you, so I released your handcuffs and entrusted you with the rear.”
It was a calm explanation, but the golden eyes listening were distorted as if they couldn’t understand.
“But why did you do that?”