By Zephyria The members who had finished their meal were erasing the traces of their stay in the cave and scattering relatively freely to organize the remaining luggage. However, some of them, including Squad Leader 8, stood far away and watched Leonardo.
This was because there had been an incident in which the members of Squad Leader 8 had all gotten up in a hurry, worried that he might run away, when he had suddenly jumped up during the meal and tried to go outside. Because of that, Leonardo couldn’t go far and plopped down on the low, flat rock where he had sat with Hugo yesterday.
The other members, except for the few who were watching him, gathered the dishes after the meal and approached the lake in the crater. They judged that the water was so clear and transparent that it was suitable for rinsing dishes or filling water bottles.
As they reached the water’s edge, ripples spread across the calm surface of the lake.
Leonardo stared at the ripples without meaning and bit his lip, lost in thought.
‘There’s so much to do, can I really finish the subjugation and get back by then at this rate? I wish I could just wander around on my own…. No, Agrizendro would never allow me to wander around on my own, even if he allowed me to do anything else.’
While he was so preoccupied with his anxiety that he couldn’t pay attention to his surroundings, Flynn slowly approached him. Flynn put down the luggage he had organized a little away from Leonardo and carefully spoke to him, who seemed to have a lot on his mind since earlier.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
This was because he had gotten up and gone out of the cave and been stopped by the members, and had hardly eaten again since then. Leonardo narrowed his brow and bit his lip, then glanced at Flynn, turned his head back towards the lake, and said.
“You really like me.”
Flynn’s face was filled with embarrassment and he asked him back as if he was saying something out of the blue.
“What? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
Leonardo, who had suddenly said such a thing, said without any emotional change, not taking his eyes off the surface of the water.
“You keep talking to me.”
It would be funny if Leonardo got along well with the Council members, but Flynn was very concerned about him because he kept trying to be alone and didn’t eat properly.
Of course, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with him either. However, because the other members were very wary of Leonardo, Flynn felt responsible for taking care of him, even if it was just him.
But his answer just now sounded as if he was annoyed by his kindness, so Flynn glared at him and said.
“Then should I mind my own business?”
Leonardo was trying to ignore him because he had a lot to think about and his head was complicated. However, he felt Flynn’s sullen voice and gaze constantly directed at him, so he had no choice but to turn his head. Clear and fresh light green eyes were looking at him with a rather disappointed look.
From the first time he met this guy, he could see what he was thinking just by looking at his eyes. Perhaps that’s why he was a rather tiring type for him, because he showed everything from talking to him to getting hurt and disappointed.
But despite that, he didn’t back down and kept talking to him, so it seemed that that was just his nature.
Leonardo shook his head and tapped the seat next to him.
“Sit down. Don’t just stand there.”
Flynn let go of his glaring expression and sat down next to Leonardo as if he was unexpectedly possessed. In fact, he might have been waiting for him to say that.
However, as soon as they sat down side by side, Flynn wondered what to say to him in the silence that followed. In the meantime, he looked at his expression, which seemed to be seriously worried as he continued to stare at the lake, and asked cautiously.
“What’s wrong? You look very serious.”
“Wrong?”
Leonardo chuckled softly.
“A lot.”
It might have seemed a bit arrogant, but when he said that with a serious face, it seemed that he was really troubled by a lot of things. However, he knew instinctively that Leonardo wouldn’t answer even if he asked about it, so Flynn didn’t ask any further, even though he was curious.
In fact, he didn’t tell him, but Flynn was somewhat certain that he had rescued Briana Dixie, the head of Delberg’s merchant guild, from frost territory.
But the reason he was keeping his mouth shut was not because Leonardo was an accomplice in the demon beast smuggling, but because he thought that he knew the circumstances that Briana Dixie seemed to have been used by the merchant guild, even if he didn’t know how.
So he speculated that he might have been solving cases that hadn’t been revealed on the surface. He was good at changing or hiding his appearance, so it wouldn’t be strange if there was another case he was involved in among the many cases the Council had solved.
Suddenly, Flynn remembered when he had asked Terzio, or rather Leonardo who was acting as him, where he was going when they parted ways in frost territory. At the time, he said he was going where he was needed.
Recalling the conversation at that time, Flynn quietly thought, rolling his eyes.
‘The Council is the place that needs you the most.’
If you were in the Council, you could face a lot of different things. The world was full of bizarre events, things to solve, and people who needed help.
Some people said that the world was a better place to live in after the war, but others were living in an invisible turmoil even in this peace.
And the hero who blooms in such turmoil was the existence that everyone wanted.
In fact, the Leonardo that Flynn remembered in the past was like an unapproachable hero, so it felt strange to be sitting next to him. Although the Dark Silver military headquarters that Dark Silver often visited was also in the Imperial Capital, it was still quite difficult to see Dark Silver in the Imperial Capital.
Moreover, Leonardo Blaine, who was mentioned as one of the strongest of the Dark Silver, could only be seen during large-scale expeditions, and he always wore a helmet on the expedition, so Flynn never imagined that he would be sitting right next to the face inside the helmet.
He no longer had as much glory as he did back then due to some kind of incident, but Flynn could feel enough that he wasn’t a bad person just by spending this short time with him. That’s why he felt even more sorry that he was left with the image of a criminal.
So Flynn wanted him to be affiliated with the Council and become a hero of the world once again.
Just like back then, when you asked a child at the Agrizendro territory’s Bermuda-born professional nursery who they respected the most, they would say Leonardo Blaine’s name first without hesitation, even with Hugo Agrizendro in front of them.
But knowing that it was his greed, Flynn swallowed it bitterly instead of saying it out loud.
While Flynn was reminiscing about him sitting next to him, Leonardo stared at the lake in front of him and opened his mouth.
“Hey, was that always like that?”
Flynn woke up from his thoughts and turned his eyes to the lake, following his gaze. He could see that the center of the lake, which had been clear and transparent, was dyed black by something huge.
It was getting closer and closer to the members who were sitting by the water and rinsing the dishes.
Flynn narrowed his eyes, wondering if he had seen it wrong.
“What… is that?”
It was as if something enormous was holding its breath inside the lake. Flynn was leaping to his feet, startled by the unusual movement, when—
“Get away from the water!”
Squad Leader 8 shouted as she rushed forward, and at the same moment, a black shadow shot out of the water. Thick, long legs emerged from its torso, and in an instant, it snatched up two soldiers standing near the shore.
“Ugh!”
“W-What is that!”
The unidentified demon beast resembled an octopus with multiple legs, and it was so massive that it was hard to believe it had been hiding in the water unnoticed all this time.
Its reddish-black skin was covered in a slippery, almost sticky liquid, and dozens of eye-filled holes were embedded in the center of its leg-covered torso, making it utterly grotesque.
One leg, noticeably thicker and sturdier than the others, had a scorpion-like stinger at the end, aimed at the captured soldiers.
One of the soldiers being dragged up immediately drew the sword at his waist and stabbed at the demon beast’s leg that was binding him. But instead of piercing its skin, the blade slid off, failing to cut it at all.
Squad Leader 8 was the first to charge toward the demon beast, shouting to her subordinates,
“Squad 8, all attack!”
At the squad leader’s command, all the soldiers jumped out and lunged at the creature from the air. The demon beast agilely swung its massive legs to catch the soldiers who were disrupting its vision, but the soldiers were quicker to evade them.
Those wielding swords evaded the demon beast’s legs and plunged into the flesh where their comrades were trapped, hacking away. But as if finding the attack amusing, the slippery-looking legs remained unscathed, instead deflecting the blades.
Seeing that physical attacks seemed to have no effect, Squad Leader 8 frowned and reached out her hand toward the demon beast, chanting an incantation.
“Brute Force.”
A gray-white magic circle formed in her hand, and immediately, invisible compressed air flew out and mercilessly struck the demon beast’s torso.
As the creature roared and its movements slowed, the other soldiers now imbued their blades with magic and swung their swords once more. This time, the blades pierced the demon beast’s flesh, completely severing the wildly thrashing leg.
Taking advantage of the brief loosening of the binding, the trapped soldier quickly escaped. However, the severed surface of the demon beast’s leg writhed grotesquely, and a new leg quickly grew from within. Squad Leader 8 shouted,
“It has regenerative abilities! Attack preemptively before it fully regenerates!”
“Yes, understood!”
Immediately, the soldiers who could use ranged magic created distance in the air and aimed their hands at the demon beast. And just as they were about to unleash their attacks all at once, the end of the leg, which they had simply thought was a stinger, split open and sprayed a sticky, viscous substance into the air.
“Dodge!”
As it flew toward them, Flynn erected a barrier in front of himself and Leonardo. They didn’t know what the viscous substance was, but it felt like it was definitely not safe.
The other soldiers also quickly deployed barriers to defend themselves, but one who was unable to cast in time was directly covered in the liquid.
However, just as they were relieved that there was no physical impact, the creature’s split-open tail end transformed back into a sharp stinger and shot out at the soldier covered in the viscous substance, grazing his arm.
“Ugh!”
“Ken!”
The soldier called Ken screamed and fell from the air. Another soldier immediately descended after him and managed to catch him, but his torso was already completely wrapped in the demon beast’s leg.