What Is Leon Crusif Doing Right Now?
Along the canal-side promenade, citizens strolled out to enjoy the cool summer night.
Restaurants and cafés lined the walkway, the Rumel Canal stretching behind them as a scenic backdrop.
At one such restaurant—
"……"
A woman with short sky-blue hair, Ceren, stood with her back against the outer wall.
Arms folded, she focused intently on the conversation drifting out from within.
Several minutes passed like that.
Then—
Her hand settled on her sword hilt. Someone gently caught that hand and held it still.
"Unnie. It's me. Me."
Confirming who it was, Ceren slowly took her hand off the hilt.
"……Good evening."
"Hmm. Long time no see."
Hera licked her lips and smiled with her eyes.
She glanced past the corner of the wall. A boy was talking with a beautiful woman in a white dress.
"Ugh. My little brother is fooling around with a girl again?"
A sigh slipped from Hera's mouth.
She turned to Ceren.
"Unnie, I'll take over from here. You can head back."
"……"
Ceren didn't answer right away. She looked slowly past the corner, then back at Hera without a word.
"Hmm~? What, you don't want to?"
Hera tilted her head, a glossy sheen sliding over her eyes.
Ceren watched that look with an impassive face for a while, then finally shook her head.
"No. Then I'll leave it to you."
"Alright~. See you later~."
Hera waved with a bright, sunny smile.
Ceren added one more thing.
"And."
"Hm?"
"I don't believe we're close enough to call each other unnie and little sister."
"So cold."
Slash!
A blade wreathed in crimson starlight carved straight through Gwiho's neck.
The small head tumbled to the floor.
Thud. Thump—.
At the sudden slaughter, chaos erupted among the citizens inside the restaurant.
"Hmm~."
Hera let out a nasal hum as she lifted Gwiho's head.
A voice spilled from the head in her hand.
"Blood Heaven Sword? When did you get to the capital?"
Hera's grotesque smile deepened.
"Shut it. Who do you think you are, flirting with my little brother?"
Crunch!
Her grip clenched, and the head shattered to pieces on the spot.
Neck severed, head crushed—yet not a drop of blood or scrap of brain matter spilled.
The headless body still seated in the chair rippled black. It took on a melting shape, and the flesh soon became a doll woven from straw.
The pulverized head was the same. When Hera flicked her hand, powdered straw shook free.
A double. What had come here was a puppet Gwiho had crafted with black magic.
Of course, Leon had known that from the moment he first saw her.
Hera's dark-crimson gaze turned on Leon.
"Did I interrupt a good time, by any chance?"
Leon blinked blankly, then answered.
"No. Nice work."
"Haha."
Hera kicked the straw doll still sitting in the chair. It shot off the terrace at tremendous speed and splashed into the Rumel Canal with a heavy plunk.
Hera took the seat Gwiho had occupied.
"Little brother. Little brother."
She leaned her waist far forward, pushing her face in close.
"I missed you so, so, so much."
"Uh…… yeah. Me too."
Leon answered halfheartedly.
The next day, in the first-floor hall of the Asonia family estate.
"Noona, please get off me."
"Don't wanna~?"
Leon heaved sigh after sigh at Hera, who kept clinging to him.
Having appeared out of nowhere, Hera had followed him all the way into the Asonia household. Count Philtron had welcomed her without complaint despite the sudden visit.
"Little brother~ I'm booored~."
"……"
Ever since, she had stuck to Leon's side, singing about how bored she was.
I can't exactly just stab her for real, either.
Grinding his teeth, Leon asked a question.
"Noona. Did you finish cleaning up the Gonghyeol Group?"
"Hmm……"
Hera made a strangely deflated nasal sound.
"I caught about three demonkin…… but after that they went completely underground. Couldn't find a single one. The fun dried up, so I came to see my little brother instead."
Demonkin meant the executive tier of the Gonghyeol Group. With their forces being swept away on multiple fronts, they seemed to be lying very low.
Or maybe only the real core members had survived.
"Nothing else you found out?"
"They were thrifty little friends."
Meaning no useful evidence had been left behind.
"Thrifty…… just talk normally."
Leon snapped.
"Hm~ hm-hm~."
Hera casually ignored him and climbed onto his back.
Leon drew up his mana and tried to throw her off in the same motion—and failed.
"Hm?"
Hera patted around Leon's body, then asked,
"Your body changed a bit. How'd you do that?"
"Haven't you been to the Dragon Heart Palace, Noona?"
"When would I ever have gone there?"
"Ah. Right."
Hera had never attended Elprime Academy, so she had never visited the Dragon Heart Palace.
"Hmm. Dragon mana really is something, huh."
"Not that I'll be able to use it anymore, at this rate."
"Then why not just catch that woman and kill her?"
"Who, Gwiho?"
"Yeah."
"Fair point. Catch her, bring back the heart, and I'll let you use the Dragon Heart Palace for a week."
Maybe because their personalities were so alike, the two of them somehow clicked perfectly in conversation.
They were deep in that lively exchange when—
"Leon……?"
A voice cut in from the side, thick with bewilderment.
Hera and Leon—who still had her on his back—both turned their heads. A girl with short purple hair stood trembling.
"W-who is that person?"
Celia's eyes shook as if an earthquake had hit. Both her hands were clenched tight into fists.
"Ah, well—"
Before Leon could open his mouth, Hera spoke a beat faster.
"Honey."
She pressed her cheek affectionately against the side of Leon's face.
"Who's that girl?"
Her tone and expression had flipped completely. The faint madness was wiped clean away, replaced by the look of an ordinary woman cooing at her lover.
At her sudden transformation, Leon remembered the Hera Mask Theory Liman had once told him about.
"W-what?!"
Celia shouted. Her voice cracked high and rang through the vast hall.
"Honey……? Leon, that can't be…… right?"
Her slightly parted lips quivered.
Leon found Hera's sudden prank nothing short of absurd.
"No, what. Of course not."
Hera swiftly talked over Leon's voice.
"Honey…… don't tell me she's an ex? I thought that other girl last time was the end of it?"
"Th-that other girl last time?"
Celia's face grew paler by the second.
Hera's voice was laced with barely concealed laughter, but Celia—fully panicked—didn't notice at all.
Hera hugged Leon tight and sneered at Celia.
"Sorry, but our honey belongs to me now. Mind not clinging and just going away?"
"……!"
Celia's eyes sank dark. Following the shift in her emotions, a fierce gale began to whip through the surroundings.
Then—
"Master."
Aria came down the central staircase with a cold, expressionless face.
"Oh, you're still here?"
Hera tilted her head, then whispered into Leon's ear.
"Little brother, I thought you'd switched girls…… so you were just seeing them all at once? If you're already like this, how many concubines are you planning to take later……"
"……"
Leon felt a throbbing headache building from the endless nonsense.
Aria demurely bowed her head to Hera.
"We meet again."
Hera didn't stop there. She piled it on even higher.
"You. Still stuck to our honey's side? I told you to back off already. We made a promise last time."
"……!"
Another shock hit Celia. Wide-eyed, she turned to Aria as if she couldn't believe it.
"……"
Aria's blank expression held, but an ominous energy coiled through the air and dropped the temperature.
"……"
"……"
"……"
Hera, Celia, Aria. The three pairs of eyes formed a triangle as they flicked back and forth. The air in the hall grew heavy.
"Good morning, everyo—"
Riana, bouncing cheerfully down the central staircase, took one look at the atmosphere and turned right back around.
Leon, who had been pressing on his temples, sorted things out.
"Noona, stop the crap and get down. Celia, she's just messing with you, so turn off the wind. Ugh, I seriously can't even open my eyes. Aria, sleep well?"
"Tch."
Hera climbed down from his back, disappointed. Any further and Leon looked ready to get genuinely angry.
"Did you sleep well, Master."
"……A joke?"
Aria greeted him, and Celia's expression eased.
Leon shook his head from side to side and said,
"Let's just go eat."
The Emperor's birthday celebration banquet was drawing near.
Day by day, carriages carrying nobles arrived one after another at the capital's gates.
The same held true for members of the Four Great Ducal Houses—Crusif, Ellingold, Helbridge, and Bastio.
Wooooom—
The barrier at the capital's outer gate rippled.
Whoosh……!
The first things to burst through the barrier were four warhorses snorting rough breaths.
Jet-black, glossy coats. Massive frames and muscular builds. The horses flaunted their wild ferocity as they hauled the cart at speed.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—!
The cart that followed was likewise sheathed entirely in pitch-black material.
Its wheels looked heavy enough to crush anything in their path, and its form gave off a lean, solid impression.
The coachman, a sword strapped across his back, pulled the reins with blazing eyes.
And finally, on the side of the cart, a red eagle emblem spread its wings wide.
The carriage tore down the highway with overbearing force. The surrounding crowds, cowed by its oppressive presence, instinctively cleared far off the path it took.
Inside that carriage, every curtain was drawn, leaving it dim and dark.
"……"
A man sat with his legs crossed. He had a closely cropped head and burning red eyes set in a sharp, slanted gaze.
Clink—
The cap of a hip flask came open.
"So."
Gulp.
He tipped the whiskey down his throat and murmured,
"What is Leon Crusif doing right now?"