By Zephyria Leonardo opened his eyes wide in his sleep. The room was all dark, so it seemed to be still early dawn.
He breathed out roughly, then felt nauseous and sat up from the bed in the prison facility where he had been lying. Looking down at the floor with cloudy eyes, it clearly couldn’t be, but it looked like the floor was covered in blood.
He covered his face with both hands and rubbed it a few times as if washing his face. His forehead and body were soaked with cold sweat. Leonardo swept back his hair, gripped it roughly, and bit his lip with a deep sigh.
‘Why again, after not having them for a while….’
When he closed his eyes, the tinnitus in his ears grew more and more intense. Screams and cries, roaring sounds, the sound of gunpowder exploding, and curses directed at him. The countless sounds mixed together and painfully pricked his head as if with needles.
The screams surrounded him as if they would swallow him whole.
Even if he opened his eyes and looked at the empty front, the sounds he heard made him feel like he was already in the middle of a battlefield.
At that moment, Leonardo grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand as he felt an extreme pain suddenly spreading from it.
‘You are not a hero. You are a disaster.’
“Get out.”
‘You made that river of blood.’
“Get out, I said.”
He tore at his hair in pain. Sharp voices shouted at him right next to his ears. Feeling like his mind was collapsing, Leonardo jumped up from his seat.
The blood that covered the floor soaked his feet. A mountain of countless corpses had piled up in front of his eyes, where there had clearly been nothing, and the blood flowing from there gradually climbed up his legs.
A severed head rolled down from the mountain of corpses, which was chaotically covered with fragmented body parts. The head was wearing a helmet, but half of it was sunken, revealing the crimson flesh and skin tissue.
Fragments of the broken helmet were embedded between the torn skin, which was difficult to recognize, twitching, and brain matter mixed with blood flowed out, making it look gruesome. The thing, which could no longer be called a person, constantly changed its expression, crying and laughing, towards Leonardo.
‘You will never.’
The last face, mixed with hatred and contempt, distorted. The burst eyeball clearly stared at Leonardo and said in a desperate voice.
‘You will not die of old age.’
* * *
Clang―!
As the day dawned, the guard opened the door to the prison cell where Leonardo was being held. He couldn’t help but be startled as he stepped inside. It was because Leonardo was sitting blankly on the sofa with a rather fierce aura.
At the sound of the door opening, Leonardo stared blankly ahead, then slowly turned his head towards the guard at the door.
The guard, who met his gaze, swallowed hard and tried to hide his fear as he placed the Council’s combat uniform and military boots, as well as Leonardo’s new meal, on the table. Leonardo narrowed his eyes when he saw the navy blue combat uniform and asked.
“What’s that?”
His voice was more subdued than usual, making it sound even more ferocious. The guard cleared his throat and replied.
“The commander-in-chief has ordered that you be given a Council combat uniform for today’s expedition. Consider it an honor.”
At the guard’s words, Leonardo scoffed and rubbed his eyes roughly with his palm.
“Honor…. What a load of crap.”
The guard was angry at his answer, but he didn’t have the courage to say anything, so he put down what he had brought and tried to go back out the door. At that moment, Leonardo called out to the guard.
“Hey, wait a minute.”
The guard turned around and looked at him as if asking what he wanted.
“My artifacts that you guys confiscated. Give them back now.”
* * *
Leonardo received all the belongings that had been confiscated when he was captured in the Frost territory.
He took out his magic robe, which he usually wore, from the artifact. It was an expensive item with an ivory color and decorated with light gold lines, and its durability against fire and electricity was arguably the best.
Leaving the issued Council combat uniform behind, he put on his magic robe, put on white gloves on his hands, and fixed a black cloak around his shoulders.
Finally, he put on various rings that helped with magic power operation on his hands and stood in front of the mirror. A man with blond hair and gold eyes, whom even he himself seemed to be seeing for the first time in a long time, was standing in the mirror.
Leonardo stared at his real face for a long time. Perhaps because he had been hiding his face and living whenever he appeared in front of people for the past few years, the fact that he was revealing his bare face and going out officially felt very unfamiliar.
At the same time, Leonardo suddenly felt that he had strange expectations.
Pioneering the unknown, new missions, demon beast subjugation, group life with comrades. All of that was once his daily life.
This was not something he had participated in of his own will, but it was the first mission he would officially carry out after the military court-martial. Leonardo quietly felt the beating of his heart, then shook his head and looked back at the mirror and said to himself.
“What are you expecting?”
Knock knock―
At that moment, there was a knock on the door from outside.
This was a prison facility, so the door could not be opened from the inside and could only be opened from the outside, so the guards never knocked before entering.
That meant that there was only one upright gentleman who would knock on the door of the prison cell where he was locked up.
Leonardo looked at the door and asked, pretending not to know.
“Who is it?”
Then, a deep and pleasant baritone that he was now quite familiar with was heard.
“We’re leaving now. Come out already.”
After he said that, the tightly closed door slowly opened a moment later. A refreshing coolness was felt.
The blue-eyed gentleman standing in front of the door came inside, looked at him for a moment, then turned his gaze to the combat uniform left on the table.
“You’re not wearing the combat uniform.”
Leonardo replied somewhat curtly.
“I’m not even in the Council, so why would I wear the Council’s combat uniform?”
Hugo nodded lightly without saying anything else.
“Do as you please.”
Leonardo slowly scanned the large man who was speaking as if he didn’t care much.
He had only seen him wearing Agrizendro’s white uniform every time, but seeing him wearing a navy blue combat uniform, black military boots, and a black protective vest felt different.
His body itself had a lot of muscle, so he looked solid, and his shoulders and chest were a broad inverted triangle body shape. The combination of his long legs and the military boots that were tightly laced up to his ankles, as befitting his personality, created a pretty good line.
Moreover, perhaps because his hair was navy blue, it went even better with the navy blue combat uniform, and the shaded blue eyes, firm jawline, and thick, long neck seemed to highlight a strong and wild masculinity, unlike the neat and tidy appearance he had felt when looking at his uniform.
Leonardo pondered for a moment what word to use to express this feeling.
Somehow… something….
‘A little sexy….’
“Leonardo.”
At the sudden voice calling him, Leonardo looked at his face, slightly embarrassed, wondering if he had been scanning him too blatantly.
However, Hugo looked at Leonardo and opened his mouth seriously, as if it wasn’t about that.
“As you know from your military life, individual actions in a group mission can endanger the entire group. So keep my words in mind and only follow my orders. Understand?”
Leonardo blinked a few times with a dumbfounded expression, narrowed his eyes as if treating someone like an idiot, and replied.
“Hey, you were once part of the Imperial Army, right? Then you should know? How much of a controlled group life the military requires. Of course I know that.”
At Leonardo’s reaction, Hugo looked down at him silently, then nodded slightly and said.
“Okay, if you know that well, then that’s good. But it’s unexpected. It’s been almost 10 years since I was in the Imperial Army, so I thought you wouldn’t know.”
That was because the period when Hugo was ritually in the Imperial Army for a certain period of time due to the family’s honor was even before Leonardo had enlisted in the army.
He was quite an elite even during his military service, but because of his family, he was not assigned to a famous special unit dispatched to dangerous places like Dark Silver, and therefore his actions at the time were not very prominent.
Hugo began to do noticeable activities when Abraham Lancaster, who was his superior at the time, transferred his affiliation to the Council and came to the Council with him, so there were quite a few people who did not know that he had been in the Imperial Army in the past.
But Leonardo knew this. At Hugo’s reaction, Leonardo added as if it were nothing.
“Well, I don’t know much about what happened back then. But when I rummage through old documents, your name often appears even if I don’t want to see it.”
The corners of Hugo’s lips slowly went up as he listened. He had a rather happy face as if he had caught something.
“Then you know well. That I’m almost 10 years your senior. I don’t think your attitude right now is the attitude of someone treating a senior.”
Leonardo, who was at a loss for words, looked dumbfounded and at the same time had a guilty expression.
“…Are you going to bring that up now?”
Hugo smiled nonchalantly, checked the watch on his wrist, and gestured to Leonardo with his chin.
“Let’s go, there’s not much time left.”