By Zephyria “Leonardo Blaine, Squad Leader 8 of the military special elite unit Dark Silver, 11th Squad, is hereby stripped of all positions granted by the military, demoted to the lowest rank, and dishonorably discharged.”
Thud, thud, thud!
The sound of the verdict echoed within the silent military Supreme Court. From that point on, the quiet courtroom became rapidly noisy.
Leonardo Blaine, his hands bound by Magic Stone handcuffs, simply sat askew in the center chair of the courtroom, his bloodshot eyes silently fixed on the judge’s bench.
“No way… Squad Leader, say something! Say it isn’t true, that you did it to protect us!”
He could hear his squad members shouting from behind, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around.
Someone’s scream, the noise of soldiers—once his comrades—blocking and subduing his squad members, and even the covert sneers directed at him, now neither a soldier nor anything else, all frantically burrowed into his ears, causing tinnitus.
The military judges, as if their business was done, rose from their seats and left the noisy courtroom. Only then did Leonardo notice the massive flag of the Laina Rogia Imperial Army hanging behind them.
He had worn the same insignia as that flag and the cloak protecting this empire, traversing all sorts of battlefields and dangers, but what had come back to him was the disgrace of ‘dishonorable discharge due to insubordination.’
Leonardo chuckled in disbelief. It felt as if all those things had flashed by in a very short time.
As his ego tried to escape from reality, the senses in his body dulled and the surrounding sounds buzzed. A feeling of separation between space and himself arose, followed by ear-splitting tinnitus and nausea.
Unable to bear it any longer, he kicked off from the chair he was sitting on. The chair harshly fell backward, and everyone turned their heads to focus on him.
Leonardo breathed heavily, his fierce gaze lifting to look up at the massive imperial flag before him. As he faced it, he felt an indescribable resentment surging within his chest.
“Uaaaaaaah!”
His pale face flushed red, and veins stood out on his neck. As he screamed madly, a massive flame instantly erupted around him. The flames, raging fiercely as if to devour everything around, made everyone in the courtroom tense up and step back.
He vented his frustration in his screams, swinging and slamming his arms around to break free from the handcuffs on his wrists. But far from breaking the handcuffs, everything around him was shattered instead.
“Someone, do something about that guy!”
At the shout of a military officer, the soldiers guarding the courtroom swarmed in and surrounded him. However, they couldn’t easily approach due to the fierce fire and the savagely sparking Dark Silver lurking within.
Leonardo’s flames were explosive, but they repeatedly grew and shrank as if being sucked in by something. The handcuffs on his wrists were rapidly absorbing the magic power he was emitting.
Nevertheless, Leonardo ignited flames as if to burn his entire body, and raged as if his internal organs were twisted.
“Damn it, how could you do this to me? How could you do this to me!”
“What are you doing? Subdue that guy quickly!”
He revealed a bitter sense of betrayal to the empire he had once defended with all his might. But in someone’s eyes, he was merely a criminal who wouldn’t accept his punishment and was running wild.
At the officer’s repeated order, the hesitant soldiers rushed at Leonardo, taking advantage of the weakened flames. Then, as if he had been waiting for it, he desperately resisted those who were once his comrades with his hands bound by the thick handcuffs.
He threw punches, kicked, and explosively emitted even the magic power that was quickly being absorbed. An eerie aura surged in all directions, and hot air scorched and shook the surroundings.
As a result, a strong gust of wind blew, flames soared, and soon the entire military tribunal was engulfed in crimson flames. The glass windows, which had been rattling incessantly, shattered into pieces, and fragments scattered like ash.
In the midst of it, Leonardo’s golden eyes, reflecting the flickering flames, appeared to be stained blood-red.
At that moment, the door of the tribunal burst open, and dozens of royal guard poured in from there. They were the Laina Rogia’s directly affiliated royal guard, wearing white uniforms and insignia embroidered with gold and red.
The royal guard quickly entered the courtroom, blocking all possible exits and surrounding Leonardo. Fully armed with cloaks and armor that blocked fire-attribute attacks, they were on alert, slowly tightening the noose on all sides with coordinated movements, as if they knew he would act like this.
Behind them, the captain of the royal guard, their leader, leisurely revealed himself.
Amidst the tense confrontation between Leonardo, breathing passionately like an excited beast, and the royal guard, the captain of the royal guard fearlessly approached near the unfolded encirclement.
He seemed to know Leonardo well, staring intently without taking his eyes off him.
“Leonardo Blaine, surrender.”
Unlike his gaze, his voice was cold and frigid, as if addressing a complete stranger.
Leonardo flinched and turned his head, and the entire royal guard, who had been forming a formation, reacted to his action, intensifying their vigilance.
Leonardo’s lips twisted fiercely. He also seemed to recognize the captain of the royal guard’s face. His golden eyes, upon meeting him, became bloodshot to the point of being ominous.
His golden eyes, searching for prey, slowly rolled around, sweeping over the crowd with a force that seemed to burn everything. Then, as if he was dumbfounded, he let out a sneer and said in a savage voice.
“Do you think I would surrender in this situation?”
At his mocking words, the captain of the royal guard stared directly at him with emotionless eyes. Finally, he opened his mouth in a calm tone.
“It is the imperial order.”
A moment of silence fell.
The fiercely burning flames of Leonardo suddenly died down as if water had been poured on them.
The surging eerie energy plummeted to the ground. His face, which had instantly lost its momentum, was filled with shock and contempt, slowly distorting. He stared at the captain of the royal guard as if he couldn’t believe it, with a face that seemed to have lost everything he had.
The captain of the royal guard, who had willingly met his gaze, lightly gestured to his subordinates to capture him now that the flames had completely subsided.
The hesitant royal guard and soldiers rushed at Leonardo once again. They knelt him down, slammed him down, and bound him.
Even as his strength gave out and his head and shoulders were forcibly slammed into the ground, Leonardo clearly stared at the feet of the humans visible in his low field of vision.
The captain of the royal guard, watching his futile resistance, turned his body and began to walk away, as if he thought the situation was over. Watching his receding feet, Leonardo put a sneer on his lips and savagely muttered.
“Even if you live like that for the rest of your life, you will eventually be abandoned like me.”
The words filled with hatred caught his collar, and the captain of the royal guard paused for a moment. Then, he turned around and met the flashing golden eyes glaring at him, but that time was not long.
Soon, he turned his body again and walked towards the door of the tribunal as if nothing had happened, saying.
“Leonardo Blaine is to be transferred to Amphitrite Prison.”
At the captain of the royal guard’s words, the military officer, who had been shouting to suppress him all along, showed a troubled expression. Although it was an imperial order, he was not at all pleased with the imperial royal guard’s intervention in the military’s internal affairs.
“There is a military prison right next door, so why are you insisting on transferring him to Amphitrite Prison?”
At that, the captain of the royal guard looked back at the military officer with a look of disdain and said.
“Isn’t he no longer a soldier?”
* * *
Squad Leader 8 of the military special elite unit Dark Silver. A veritable war hero of the empire.
The news that Leonardo Blaine, who had possessed such splendid modifiers, had been expelled from the military, immediately spread like wildfire throughout the world. He was immediately transferred to Amphitrite Prison, located in a rugged island region with strong waves, and his 11th Squad, which he had belonged to, was temporarily disbanded after the military court martial.
A few months later, he was paroled, but he was no longer a soldier. Contrary to people’s concerns that he would run wild with revenge if he came out of prison, he soon disappeared, leaving only short, rumor-like news.
Although he was dishonorably discharged from the military, it was a self-evident fact known to everyone in the world that Leonardo Blaine was a powerful mage. Furthermore, since the 11th Squad he belonged to was a powerful unit that was frequently dispatched to dangerous areas, various alliances, guilds, and organizations had been desperately searching for him for a while.
However, there were only rumors about him working as a mercenary somewhere, or participating in a subjugation squad, etc., mainly in dangerous and rough places, and it was difficult to meet him.
Occasionally, there were stories of people who had seen him directly, but it was impossible to know whether that was true or not.
After he disappeared, the empire continued the war as if such a thing had never happened from the beginning.
In the territorial war that had been lost due to Leonardo’s insubordination, they repeatedly waged battles to recapture the heights, and many casualties occurred. But in the end, they achieved a victory without a hero, flaunting their status to neighboring countries and thoroughly erasing the reason for the fallen hero’s existence.
Nevertheless, the empire did not exile him abroad, in order to prevent the ownership of his uniquely powerful magic power from passing to another country.
Time passed quickly, and the hero’s faded glory was buried deep in the past, and Leonardo Blaine’s name was forgotten in the world for three years.
Just as it was thought that his traces had been completely covered, a ripple occurred again in the rumors about him, which had been like a calm lake.
This was because a new movement to chase him had appeared.
The ripple gradually grew, and his name came to mind again in people’s consciousness.
However, unlike before, his name was no longer the name of a glorious hero.
He established himself as the most heinous mage in the world, who disobeyed orders, set fire to the military tribunal, and disgraced the imperial family and the people of the empire.
* * *
“So, you missed him again?”
“Commander, that guy is a devil, I tell you? We were all almost electrocuted!”
Hugo looked at the two subordinates who were reporting, covered in soot and in a mess, and let out a small sigh. One of them had his hair completely burned off, and his appearance was terrible, as if he had been hit by a bombing. How many times was this already? Catching that guy was not easy at all.
Narrowing his brow, he turned his eyes away for a moment, cleared his troubled expression, and asked the two again.
“What was the situation at the time?”
“We succeeded in sensing his aura and blocking all the nearby exits to create a confrontation… but he broke through the encirclement and escaped again this time.”
“……”
“Afterwards, we mobilized all the equipment to track his magic power fluctuations, but by then there were no clues left to chase. It was as if he had disappeared from that spot without a trace.”
“Disappeared without a trace, huh….”
“I’m sorry.”
Another subordinate, who had her long hair tied up, gave a short briefing and lowered her head. She was Squad Leader 8 of the 1st Battalion of the Council’s Central Branch, and there was no one who could match her in the field of magic power detection and tracking. Hugo was just as frustrated as she was, seeing such a capable subordinate speak so self-deprecatingly.
The Council’s corps had dispatched powerful mages every time to pursue him, but the problematic guy, classified as a high-risk individual, was overwhelmingly strong. Rather, it was fortunate that it always ended like this.
However, the world always values only results.
Hugo’s gaze, who was rubbing his brow in fatigue, shifted to the documents scattered on the desk. The contents of the documents were so-called reminders.
As they had not caught Leonardo Blaine for a long time, voices doubting the Council’s ability gradually grew, and the high-minded councilors were displeased because of this.
However, the Council to which Hugo belonged had many tasks, such as maintaining public order to maintain the empire’s social order and performing various missions, so it was impossible to form a unit to pursue that guy every time.
Furthermore, this was a time when incidents and accidents were particularly frequent, so they had to send the two in front of him to other areas without a break.
Hugo, recalling the past attempts that had failed several times, eventually concluded that the reason was the fundamental difference in power. It did not take long for him, who had made up his mind after a sigh, to slowly rise from his seat.
“I’ll go myself.”
“…Yes?”
The Squad Leader 3, who was making a tearful face and calling the guy a devil, widened her eyes in surprise at Hugo’s words and asked again.
“You’re going yourself, Commander?”
Hugo picked up the uniform jacket that had been hung on the hanger and nodded lightly. The Squad Leader 3 felt a chill for some reason at his resolute and heavy gesture. The chilling aura emanating from him filled the air in the office.
With a fierce chill that made her forget all the harsh words she had been spouting just a moment ago, a complex emotion about the guy who would soon be caught arose in a corner of the Squad Leader 3’s heart.
Of course, it was true that she had always wanted the commander to step in himself, but now that he was really stepping in, it seemed that the situation was turning out to be very serious.
Perhaps if he stepped in himself, it would be difficult for the guy to be caught in a fully intact state. He was not the type to be caught so easily.
Hugo, who had put on his jacket, put on the gloves he had taken off on the table and fastened the fixing buttons on his wrist. In the meantime, his cold gaze stared intently at the name on the reminder.
Leonardo Blaine.
He had become an ordinary mage after being kicked out of the military three years ago, and under the imperial law, all ordinary mages of Laina Rogia had to be registered in the Council’s management system. This law was intended to facilitate the monitoring and control of powerful mages who might commit any kind of act in the future.
However, he disappeared as soon as he was stripped of his position and paroled from prison, and of course, he refused to respond to the call to voluntarily attend the Council and register his personal information. Whenever rumors circulated that he had been seen, the Council went to find him, but he had always disappeared by the time they arrived.
Leonardo Blaine had been affiliated with the Imperial Army, so his information was as good as veiled. And figuring that out was a task that the Council had not yet been able to solve.
Even with several executive-level mages of the Council attached to him, he always fought a battle that was advantageous to him and then disappeared without finishing it. It was certain that he was a considerable powerhouse, as he was judged to have a combat ability that was far superior to, rather than comparable to, theirs.
Hugo, the corps commander of the Council, who had tasted bitterness so often, had been tormented by that name to the point of disgust.
Whether he liked it or not, it had been three years since he had heard that name.
Hugo, who thought it was time to uproot it now, stared at the document containing his personal information with sunken eyes. Then, he picked up a photo that was sandwiched between them and slowly rubbed the face contained within.
“I’ll see you soon.”