By Zephyria Leonardo’s eyelids moved slightly. His face became blank as if he was retracing his memories, and he briefly retorted.
“Huh?”
His wavering Gold Eyes were very busy, as if he was recalling his past remarks. He hesitated and asked back.
“I said that? When?”
“Yesterday, and also on the day of the test.”
Hugo tried to say it more specifically, but he waited for a while until he recalled it himself, fearing that it would put a strain on Leonardo’s mind.
Before long, the outline of his memory became clear, and Leonardo’s pupils hid in the shadows and dilated. It was a sufficient signal for Hugo, who had been watching his pupils all along, to capture.
“You called someone that whenever you were confused. If I were to infer the impression of that person in your remarks, it doesn’t seem like a good image at all.”
Hugo slowly asked while watching Leonardo’s complexion.
“Has he ever asked you for a blood sample? Or has he ever taken advantage of you?”
As he finished speaking, he stared at the black line on the other’s neck. It stood out starkly against his pale neck today.
Leonardo, who had almost fainted and fallen asleep the night before, was still too early to be considered mentally and physically stable. For that reason, he had no intention of mentioning the subject right away, but since he had brought up the blood test first, there seemed to be no reason to postpone it.
As the persistent gaze followed him, Leonardo’s expression gradually hardened as if he had made a slip of the tongue. His Adam’s apple rippled slowly as he unconsciously swallowed hard. He lowered his eyes and pressed his lips together, then slowly raised his eyelids and stared at Hugo.
“I don’t remember.”
His answer sounded like an excuse, and Hugo’s cold eyes narrowed.
“More importantly. When we returned to Zodiac from Fidele Territory, was what you gave me a sleeping pill too?”
This time, a question came back instead of an answer. The corners of Leonardo’s lips were trembling slightly.
“Why did you give it to me? What did you do behind my back?”
Leonardo asked accusingly, but Hugo didn’t get caught up in it. Rather, his attempt to push him seemed to be avoiding answering so transparently.
“I answered your first question first, so I want to hear your answer this time. If you tell me first, I’ll answer you too.”
Leonardo frowned reflexively at the tone that suggested a deal. If it was really a sleeping pill, he was the one who deserved an explanation, so why did he have to find out the truth like this?
But even if Leonardo was someone he had to protect, Hugo had no intention of easily revealing his political weaknesses. The fact that he had swept away the Imperial Knights in the rapids while running away with him was a top secret that should not be known to the outside world. Wasn’t that why he had made it look like an accident during the dam discharge process, even at the expense of Cordelia Hares?
Of course, he was being brazen in return when he should have been more humble, but sometimes a firm response was necessary to coax a child who wouldn’t open his mouth.
Hugo looked at him with eyes that told him to speak quickly. Reading his stubbornness, Leonardo fell silent with an unpleasant look on his face.
Soon, the eyelashes pointing downwards slowly covered up his inner thoughts. Then, Hugo put a little strength into Leonardo’s hand that he was holding.
“Is it because of him that you’re afraid of blood tests?”
In an instant, Leonardo’s uneasy Gold Eyes shot up and stared straight into Hugo’s blue eyes. The two faced each other silently as if they were having a staring contest.
Just as the sound of leaves fluttering spread, Leonardo was the first to speak.
“Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone.”
His lips twitched as if he was about to reveal the truth. Was the word ‘secret’ so stimulating?
Hugo, feeling a thrill spread through his brain, held his breath and nodded instead of making a clumsy confirmation.
Leonardo frowned as if he was reluctantly opening his mouth, then turned his gaze elsewhere and continued.
“Four or five days before going into battle, they draw blood in advance and freeze it. And right before the battle, they inject it back into my body.”
Hugo took a moment to understand the meaning of the words that flowed out calmly. Soon after, his eyes turned strange and he asked again.
“They draw blood and then inject it back in?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Then my body feels strangely light.”
Hugo narrowed his brow and tilted his head slightly. As the silence of someone who didn’t understand grew longer, Leonardo added.
“It’s a method that’s been used a lot since a long time ago to increase the killing ability of soldiers. They say it enhances physical abilities or something. Since blood can be drawn from the body, it costs less than developing drugs. But the hygiene in the middle of the battlefield is terrible, so a lot of guys died from bacterial infections. There were also unexplained heart attacks. I don’t know what it’s like these days, but it was a common method until five years ago.”
A different story than expected came out, but Hugo listened carefully to him, as he seemed to see the outline of his blood-drawing trauma. Draw blood and then transfuse it again after a certain amount of time. He didn’t know exactly what the principle was, but it seemed to be a method of increasing exercise capacity by increasing the amount of blood in the body.
“You too, you have experience with it?”
Hugo asked quietly, staring intently at Gold Eyes. Leonardo’s gaze, which had been cast far away, returned again.
“Dozens, no, hundreds of times.”
“……”
“Always during the time of war.”
As he answered in a calm tone, Hugo’s mind became dazed.
“The more blood you have to transfuse, the better, so those subject to disciplinary action were forcibly dragged away and had their blood drawn. There was also a rumor that the stronger the source of the blood, the better the effect, so there were many cases of people dying from rejection or shock after recklessly transfusing animal, demon beast, or other people’s blood.”
The stories coming out of Leonardo’s mouth were all nothing more than unverified human experiments. It was a shocking and cruel act that made him think it was foolish.
They don’t even treat prisoners of war like that. The Imperial Army was such a closed organization, but he never knew that this kind of thing was so prevalent. Along with Leonardo’s strangely calm tone, Hugo felt a chill down his spine.
“…I see.”
He muttered softly, staring at the pile of documents on the table that had already been pushed to the back burner. He seemed to know roughly why Leonardo would have a seizure whenever someone tried to extract something from his body.
If he had repeated this act before every battle, the needle for blood collection would have been regarded as a signal flare for battle in his mind. He had heard and seen enough yesterday to know how miserable and devastated the place called ‘battlefield’ was to him. In the end, the process of extracting something from his body and injecting it back in seemed to be a kind of war trauma that had been regularly learned by him.
Just as he was organizing his thoughts, Hugo felt a chill run down his spine.
“Then… your blood too, was it indiscriminately drawn and entered into the bodies of many people in that way? You would have been an undisputed ‘strong being’.”
Leonardo’s face, which had been continuing to speak well, darkened rapidly after hearing the question. His skin color itself was pale to the point of being pale, but the darkness around his eyes deepened and repeated along the shade of the parasol.
“I’m….”
But more than that, his expression, as if he was recalling his memories, was not good at all.
“No, I wasn’t that bad.”
It was an unexpected answer, but Hugo’s eyelids loosened with relief. On the other hand, Leonardo’s eyelashes fluttered, perhaps because of the wind.
“My blood, they said it was precious… so I could only use it on myself….”
The soft breeze that brushed his cheek was like a harbinger of a cold wind that created a bleak atmosphere. Hugo focused his attention on the words that came out of his mouth.
‘Precious?’
Well, Laina Rogia’s undisputed war hero. The Imperial Army’s top power, final weapon, last bastion.
Some people feel headaches or dizziness even with a small amount of blood drawn if it doesn’t suit their constitution. It would be a problem for the Empire if Leonardo’s blood was drawn in large quantities and he suffered from poor condition.
In other words, it wasn’t wrong to say that his blood was ‘precious’ if you had to. But why did he feel so uncomfortable with the word precious?
Hugo thought that the discomfort came from the look in Leonardo’s eyes that he was seeing. There was an abyss in his shaded eyes that he had not yet revealed. A deeper abyss that he couldn’t dare to look into.
Then, Leonardo opened his mouth.
“There was one more person.”
“What?”
“Someone who can use my blood.”
Hugo’s lips stiffened. It was because he sensed that it was ‘that guy’ in the context.
“Who is it?”
His voice was more cautious and lower than ever. The blue eyes between the shaded eyes shone with a subtle light.
Leonardo’s lips twitched slightly, and he seemed to be contemplating several times even after spitting it out. As he tried to recall the past, his stomach gradually worsened, and he occasionally covered his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then, he looked around aimlessly and scanned the four members standing at a distance. As if worried about listening ears, Hugo tried to reassure him.
At that moment, a word flowed from his red lips.
“Vampire….”
Gold Eyes, which quickly returned to their place, stared at Hugo and asked.
“Do you know about Vampires?”