It Had Broken Without Warning
“······.”
Lock awoke with a strange unease gnawing at him.
This feeling…
A vague, itching discomfort in his chest. A sense of déjà vu. It was a sensation he knew all too well.
There was no mistaking it. This was exactly how he felt every time his son Leon showed up carrying some fresh headache.
Lock made a guess.
Is it because of yesterday?
Just the night before, a monstrous beast had rampaged through the skies over District Four, painting the heavens in wild light. Leon, he had heard, had taken a hand in putting it down.
The news had surprised him, yes—but another part of him had already grown used to Leon’s changed nature and the path he now walked.
In other words… the fact that Leon had been involved in the subjugation didn’t feel out of place. If anything, it felt fitting.
“My dear. It’s time to wake.”
Lock stroked the hair of his wife sleeping beside him.
“Mmm······.”
Elliot opened her eyes, still half-asleep. Her complexion was dark; shadows hung heavy beneath her eyes.
In truth, the one who had been truly shaken yesterday was not Lock but Elliot.
The battle that had torn across the sky had been plainly visible even from District Two. Knowing their son had been caught up in a fight of that magnitude had kept her awake through the night.
Hearing news in writing or by word of mouth was one thing. Seeing with your own eyes what the situation had looked like was something else entirely.
Lock sighed inwardly.
If he’s all right, he could at least stop by and show his face…
Before, that might have been too much to ask—but now they were in the same district. It would have been easy enough.
Even a brief visit, or a single message, would have kept his wife’s heart from burning itself hollow.
But Lock knew as well as his wife did that Leon would never do such a thing.
Leon was far better at conversation now, far quicker with a joke than he used to be… and yet the distance between them only seemed to have grown.
The way Leon looked at them was not the way a son looked at his parents. He regarded them merely as a duke and duchess with whom he happened to be somewhat acquainted.
And so, without business to conduct, he neither visited nor sent word. Had they not invited him to dinner the day he arrived in the capital, they might never have seen his face at all.
That day had been no different. The moment they tried to act even a little like parents, his expression had gone stiff and unmistakably awkward. Lock remembered it clearly.
“······.”
In the end, that this was the relationship he had with Leon was Lock’s own failing. His karma.
His first child had grown up on their own. So had the second. Both had stood tall with clear, independent selves. And so he had believed the third would do the same.
Using busyness as an excuse, he had failed to give enough attention and love. He had watched his son’s life not with his own eyes but through the head butler’s reports.
The shyer the boy was, the more firmly he needed to be raised—or so Lock had foolishly thought. He had held back his wife whenever she tried to coddle Leon.
······And this was the result. A son who had spread his wings wide and flown alone, just as he had been left to. Parents who had become strangers.
He had no right to feel hurt. What kind of man neglected his duties as a father and still expected to be treated like one?
Trying to play the parent now was almost laughable. He would be lucky if he simply stayed out of the boy’s way.
Lock was still bitter with self-reproach when—
— My lord. Have you risen?
The estate’s head steward whispered carefully through the door.
Lock shook off his thoughts and answered.
“Just now. What is it?”
— Well… the third young master has come to visit.
“······!”
Lock and Elliot’s eyes went wide.
“······.”
“······.”
Leon offered a bright greeting to the duke and duchess, who were staring at him in a daze.
“Mother, Father. Good morning.”
Calling it morning was a stretch—the sun had only just begun to rise.
And yet, at this early hour, Leon had come to the Crusif family villa, bringing with him fourteen little children.
Children of every description—different hair colors, different eye colors, wildly varied appearances—sat quietly in a row, gazing up at Leon with the endless devotion of chicks watching their mother bird.
“And these children are······?”
Lock trailed off, a rare thing for him.
Leon spoke slowly.
“Orphans with nowhere to go. I found I lacked the means to care for them alone. I couldn’t think of anywhere else I could trust, so I brought them here for now.”
Surprise flickered across Elliot’s face.
“May I ask where you found them?”
It would come out eventually, so Leon decided to be honest.
“As you can see, they’re not from the continent. They’re otherkin who were living well enough in the southern seas. ······But one day, without warning, slave traders came. They lost their parents, their siblings, their relatives, their friends—killed or torn apart.”
“······.”
“They were dragged all the way to the capital, about to be sold off to wealthy men with particular tastes. I took them instead. I believe I did the right thing. Whatever else, their lives will be less brutal this way than going down that road.”
Leon continued.
“Their appearances are all rather distinctive, so I don’t trust orphanages, nurseries, or churches to keep them safe. I’d prefer they stay out of the public eye as much as possible.”
Never mind that the Full Moon was already hunting with blood in its eyes······.
After watching those nobles at the auction house feverishly collecting children, the outside world itself had started to feel dangerous.
The safest place he could think of was inside the Crusif family—the house where he was a son.
Leon didn’t stop there. He laid out his requests without hesitation.
“Teach them a little about the continent and the Empire, feed them and house them, and in exchange put them to work on odd jobs—like the servants of the estate. If that doesn’t balance the books, I’ll cover their living expenses myself. As much as you need.”
How much could a handful of children’s upkeep even cost? Leon had more than enough for that.
Lock nodded for him to go on.
“Once they can communicate properly and they’re a bit older, I’ll ask them what they want to do with their lives. Whether they stay with the family as retainers, leave, return to their homeland, repay a debt, or take revenge······ whatever it is, the choice will be theirs. But they’re still too young. Until they can stand on their own, protecting them is the right thing to do.”
He wasn’t looking for any reward. He hadn’t saved them for some petty gain.
It was simple decency and compassion—the things a person was supposed to uphold. And it wasn’t as though it would cost that much effort.
It was no different from bringing home a kitten freezing to death in midwinter. No one who rescues a kitten expects payment for the care. If they did, they shouldn’t have saved it in the first place.
Lock, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke.
“So. That’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Then we will take these children into our house.”
His easy acceptance caught Leon slightly off guard.
“Thank you, Father.”
Lock turned to the head steward.
“Take the children. See that it’s done as you’ve heard.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The servants approached and began to lead the children away.
The children turned back to Leon with wide eyes.
“Go on. I’ll see you later.”
Leon waved them off, telling them not to worry and to follow.
One of the maids stepped up beside Leon and reached behind him.
“Come along, little one.”
Leon raised a hand to stop her.
“Not this one.”
“Ah—yes, Young Master.”
Leon lowered his hand and stroked the head of the girl standing behind him.
Seeing the puzzled looks on the duke and duchess’s faces, he added,
“I’ll be taking this one with me separately.”
For a moment, Leon’s thoughts drifted back to the night before.
Last night.
After they had finished talking and agreed that everyone would spend the night together in the hotel rooms—
Leon washed up and went into his room alone.
“······.”
Still damp from the bath, he stood straight on both feet and quietly raised his sword.
Then—
Fzzzzzz—
Mana flowed from his fingertips and began to condense along the blade.
Fine particles of mana gathered like dewdrops. One by one they collected, fused, and grew.
The density thickened. The particles clung smoothly to the edge without the slightest drip or waste.
At last, the deep blue particles that had been gathering formed into slender threads.
The threads lengthened and multiplied, winding around the sword until not a glint of metal remained. A tightly ordered spool of condensed mana.
Ziiiiing—!
Leon grinned as he looked at the Sword Thread he had created.
An extraordinary hardness radiated from it. It felt as though it could cut through anything.
The crystallized product of aura compressed again and again. Proof that he had taken another step closer to the ultimate essence of the sword.
······After the battle with the Hwasinjo ended.
Leon had realized something.
The wall of Expert Upper rank had crumbled without warning.
The barrier, already tattered from accumulated experience and insight, had simply yielded when he pushed gently through it. He hadn’t even noticed for some time.
Leon believed the fight with the man in chains had been decisive.
In that battle, Leon had gone beyond Flowing Instant and grasped a new realm of swift-sword technique—the Dancing Instant. A state in which one could drift and play freely within a single moment, as if dancing.
Until then, Leon had been too fixated on the “sword” of swift-sword. He had poured everything into the act of moving the blade quickly.
But in the end, what moved the sword was the body. The focus needed to be on “swift,” not “sword.” A fast body came before a fast blade.
Which meant there was no need to be bound by the sword at all.
That was why the attacks that finished the man in chains had used every part of the body, not just the blade.
After all, every swing of a sword began with the feet planted on the earth.
And from there, he had gone further—realizing that drawing a line between sword and body was meaningless.
The sword was his body, and his body was the sword.
It was an insight that brought him close to the unity of body and blade.
And so, as he stepped into the Dancing Instant, Expert Upper rank had fallen away of its own accord.
“Good.”
Leon savored the rising sense of omnipotence. Breaking through Expert Upper had brought a tremendous leap in his martial prowess.
Heart, energy, and body—the three that had been out of alignment because his realm was incomplete.
The deficient heart had been filled, and harmony was restored. Misaligned gears locked into place. What had been blocked opened, and synergy bloomed.
He could finally make proper use of the excellent physique and power he had never fully commanded.
And that wasn’t all.
The memories, the Godhood, the experience of those exalted swordsmen he had absorbed through the Demonic Soul Pill—
Standing in this new world and looking back, what he could read in their swordsmanship was worlds apart from before. Eyes that had been blind were opening, and the quality of information he could digest had changed completely.
If he had to put his current state into a metaphor, it was like an RPG where skills and items locked behind a level requirement had finally been unlocked.
“······.”
Leon closed his eyes and projected the Siruntel Demonic Realm onto his mind’s eye.
A filthy earth and sky. Rotting ancient trees. Dense demonic energy drifting through the air. And against that backdrop, a massive demon with a vacant face.
Talkan—the high-ranking demon who had crushed Leon so effortlessly. The demonic energy the creature had radiated and the fists it had thrown were still vivid.
Only a few days ago, Leon had put his odds against that thing at less than half.
But now?
I win. No question.
He could picture it without strain—slipping past those fists, driving inside, cutting the throat, splitting the skull.
Two breaths at most. He had reached a height from which he could look down on that creature with contempt.
“Very good.”
Leon opened his eyes, satisfied.
Tszzzzz—.
He was dismissing the Sword Thread and sheathing his blade when the back of his neck prickled. He turned his head—
“······.”
Hera, Aria, and Riel were clustered together, watching him.
They offered their congratulations all at once.
“See that? That’s my little brother.”
“Congratulations, Master.”
“My felicitations.”
Leon let out a soft laugh.
“Thanks.”
And then—
Ssshk—
In the doorway, a white-haired girl appeared, staring straight at Leon with clear, unwavering eyes.