BMD 250

“……”

Whenever the timing came to explain something to this person, his spine would always feel chilly. What’s more, if it was a situation where he didn’t know what he had to explain.

Leonardo maintained his drooping eyes, but gently removed his hand that had been on Hugo’s arm. At the same time, he leaned his upper body back, creating a slight distance. His head was filled with ‘Explain what? Me? When?’ as he dug into his memory to remember what the other person was asking.

But no matter how much he tried to hide it, his face clearly showed his nervousness. Perhaps that’s why Hugo, who had been watching, let out a laugh that could barely be heard.

At the sudden snicker, Leonardo’s eyebrows twitched, and Hugo, reaching out his hand, gently rubbed his cheek and neck.

“I’m not grilling you, so you don’t have to be nervous.”

Leonardo’s eyes became sullen. Slightly lifting his shoulders, he pushed Hugo’s arm away and said.

“Nervous? Why would I be nervous?”

“Good if you’re not.”

Hugo withdrew his hand with a still smiling face. Leonardo twisted his lips, disliking his expression as if he knew everything.

Anyone would be nervous if they were suddenly asked to explain something in this way, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. It would be even stranger if they didn’t feel suffocated when the Legion Commander, who was rumored to be scary, asked them to explain something.

Turning his eyes elsewhere for a moment, Leonardo swept back his hair and chuckled. He didn’t want to empathize with the hearts of criminals who feared Kajard in this way.

“What did I say I would explain? I don’t remember.”

Leonardo retorted as if it were nothing. Then Hugo’s face, which had been relaxed, quickly hardened. He didn’t beat around the bush and immediately got to the point.

“When we were confronting the core in the plains.”

Gold Eyes, which had been trying to listen lightly, rolled away. Hugo continued.

“The southern sky was instantly covered in gold, and an explosive energy suddenly appeared before my eyes.”

“……”

“I knew it was definitely you, but I wasn’t sure if it was the complete you. It was very different from the energy I know of you.”

Leonardo, who had been concentrating, immediately recalled the moment when he had taken the Amplifier and appeared before him. The sight of him warning him not to come, saying that he would explain later, also vividly flashed through his mind.

“You said it then. ‘I’ll explain later.’ …I think I have the right to ask now about what happened while I took my eyes off you and what the source of that power was. So tell me the truth, Leonardo.”

At Hugo’s serious voice, Leonardo’s eyes also became serious.

‘The right to ask?’

Since Agrizendro had taken him out of the boundary of the rampage, he did have the right to ask if he were to be picky. However, that person was someone who was careful even with one question. Judging from the fact that he was even mentioning the word ‘right,’ it seemed like he wouldn’t let him go from this spot today until he got a satisfactory answer.

But his statement that he would explain at the time was something he had said out of necessity because there was no suitable alternative in the urgent situation. Now that the time had come to explain the words he had spat out like water, his mouth felt parched.

Leonardo licked the corner of his lips with his tongue and remained silent for a moment. Since Alex Siles was involved in this matter, excuses were inevitable in some of the answers. As he was organizing his thoughts without avoiding his eyes, Hugo, who had slowly gotten up from his chair, approached him.

Naturally raising his head and looking up, Leonardo’s neck stiffened for no reason at the lowered blue eyes. Instead of urging Leonardo, Hugo sat down next to him as he was. Then he pulled the side table next to the chair in front of him and organized the map and newspaper placed on it.

It was an extremely meaningless action, but to Leonardo, it felt like pressure that he would wait until he spoke.

It was something he would have to face once anyway, no matter how much he put it off. Leonardo opened his mouth plainly.

“I took an Amplifier.”

Hugo’s hand, which had been folding the newspaper in half, suddenly stopped in mid-air. Putting down the paper as it was, he turned to the side with surprised eyes.

“An Amplifier?”

“Yeah. A Magic Power Amplifier.”

The blue eyes instantly became sharp as if he had heard something he shouldn’t have. Magic Power Amplifiers that were occasionally seen on the market were not rare drugs. However, the problem was that most of them were sold at high prices despite having no efficacy, and fraud was frequent. In addition, there were often strange additives added to make it look plausible, so it could never be said to be safe for the body.

As the Legion Commander of the Council, Hugo had heard many related cases, so he instantly felt something bad. But Leonardo, who had appeared before his eyes at the time, hadn’t he really emitted constant Magic Power as if he had taken an Amplifier? Rather, the uncontrollable power pushed him to the limit, reaching the verge of rampage. The thing that ate away at his Magic Power, so much so that it felt useless.

Hugo unconsciously glanced at the choker that stood out on Leonardo’s neck. Then, narrowing his brow, he asked back in a slightly stern voice.

“Where did you get something like that? There are virtually no proper Magic Power Amplifiers in the Empire. All of them have unclear origins and opaque manufacturing processes. What did you think would happen to your body―.”

“You can find them all over the place if you look around a little in places like back alleys. And there was no other way then. I had to do something.”

Leonardo deliberately glossed over the origin of the drug, but asserted that he had no choice but to take the Amplifier.

At his statement, Hugo felt a surge of anger. He wasn’t angry at Leonardo for talking back, but rather at him for recklessly doing reckless things without knowing the danger.

Earlier, he had eaten Mendellias, a plant that grew in graveyards and was full of germs. Not only that, but this time he had taken a Magic Power Amplifier that couldn’t have been registered as a formal drug in order to kill the core.

Even though he was safe as a result, he didn’t know what problems might arise if this happened repeatedly. He knew that Leonardo had a lot of knowledge in various fields, but it seemed that he was handling dangerous elements such as Forbidden magic and illegal drugs distributed in the shadows without hesitation, so Hugo, who was listening, was very worried.

Closing his eyes tightly and letting out a deep sigh, he calmed his heated head and held out his hand in front of Leonardo. Then Leonardo, who had been quietly looking at Hugo’s palm, asked as if he didn’t know what he meant.

“What?”

“Give it to me right now. That Magic Power Amplifier.”

“…What?”

“It’s a serious crime just to possess illegal drugs that haven’t been formally approved. I won’t punish you, so hand it over to me right now. And don’t ever touch such drugs again.”

Leonardo, who had been blinking his eyes, was momentarily speechless. He was fixated on a few words and his buttons were pushed. What was with ‘I won’t punish you’ in this situation? He frowned and argued.

“What? A serious crime? Punishment? Seriously, is that important in this situation? If it weren’t for that Amplifier, the core might have come out and rampaged even outside the peninsula?”

As Leonardo, who was excited, tried hard to speak clearly, Hugo watched him with a displeased face. Leonardo, who was even more dumbfounded by that reaction, ignored Hugo’s words that were about to follow and continued to snap.

“I know it wasn’t a good method either. But you told me to tell you the truth, so I honestly told you it was an Amplifier without hiding it. Then shouldn’t you be able to let it go appropriately? Even if it’s an illegal drug legally, the core was killed as a result and everything ended well.”

Now that he thought about it, it was he who had said he would explain first, but wasn’t that a desperate situation where every minute and every second mattered? Even though he had risked his life to take the Amplifier and succeeded in killing the core, he felt empty as to why he had to make excuses. Leonardo felt a deep sense of resentment at Hugo’s words, which seemed to be picking on him for something that wasn’t even that important and tying him down.

“Do you have to be so right and wrong even here? Why are you―, ha….”

Leonardo, who thought he was going to say something inappropriate, bit his lip tightly and suppressed his emotions. Even so, he glared at Hugo as if he was resentful with sharp eyes. But Hugo didn’t back down either.

“…Let it go? Leonardo, if I wasn’t trying to let it go, it wouldn’t have ended with just this.”

“……”

“…Okay, the talk about punishment was my slip of the tongue. It wasn’t an appropriate word to bring up right now. I apologize for that. But my story wasn’t meant to really punish you, and I’m not trying to say that’s important either. It’s just that that Magic Power Amplifier is too dangerous for you to have. So give it to me quickly before I find it myself.”

Leonardo gradually became sulky at Hugo’s words, which still had a coercive nuance mixed in. Letting it go my ass. He couldn’t understand why he was being grilled as if he had done something wrong and had to do as he was told. Perhaps that’s why his answer was driven more by rebellion than reason.

“No.”

“Leonardo.”

“I don’t know why I have to argue with you again.”

“……It’s not an argument―.”

“Do you think I wanted to use something like that? Why do you think I took it? I took it to save people. I promised you I’d save you if anything happened—. But why do you have to corner me like I’ve committed some great sin? Shouldn’t you be thanking me first?”

The blood rushing to his head made him feel worse. He could feel himself becoming more sensitive, but Leonardo couldn’t easily control himself.

Saving people was his own choice. That’s why he didn’t want to make a fuss about it, but when words that made him shrink came before the words he wanted to hear, he became more nervous than necessary.

Hugo, sensing that he was agitated, slowly closed and opened his eyes to maintain his composure, and spoke calmly.

“Of course, I am more grateful to you than I can ever express. Not only I, but everyone who survived thanks to you will think so.”

At Hugo’s words, Leonardo regulated his rapid breathing. But his expression was still full of resentment, and his ears misconstrued the other’s words.

Hugo sighed, slowly rubbed his eyes, and grabbed Leonardo’s forearm, saying,

“But Leonardo. I’m worried about you.”

Unlike before, his deeply furrowed blue eyes struggled to contain words he didn’t want to mention.

“I’m so worried I can’t leave you alone. You almost died because of that Amplifier.”