Bring Me Their Guardians
"H-hey······ calm down a little."
Celia wrapped her arms tightly around Leon from behind as she spoke.
She was thoroughly shaken. The moment she'd found him, he'd been one breath away from beating someone to death.
Of course, the sight of Leon thrashing someone wasn't exactly unfamiliar.
The second he decided someone had it coming, he followed through without hesitation. Celia liked that about him — and often joined in herself.
But murder was different. She had never once seen Leon actually kill someone.
And just now, she'd nearly watched it happen.
That faintly twisted manic grin. Those darkly sunken eyes.
The merciless kicks driving down again and again.
The cruel killing intent seeping out in waves.
Killing intent. That same bone-chilling aura she'd felt for a fleeting moment during the mock field evaluation.
The instant she sensed it, Celia had bolted forward and locked onto him.
It had been razor-close. The ones taking the beating were barely clinging to life.
Whatever they'd done was secondary. This was inside the Asonia estate, and Leon was an invited guest.
Killing someone here was unthinkable.
On top of that, judging by their attire, the men were Asonia family trainees.
No matter that Leon was a Crusif ducal prince, and no matter how justified his reasons — he couldn't just beat them to death on a whim. The aftermath and the fallout would be a nightmare.
She tightened her hold around him, as if sheer pressure might settle him down. She simply didn't know what else to do.
"Mm."
Leon let out a low hum.
He'd nearly made a mistake. Later, maybe — but he hadn't actually intended to kill them right then and there.
To be honest, it wasn't only because he'd been lost in other thoughts.
The urge to simply snip their lifelines had leaked out on its own.
Even so, noble blood ran through those bastards' veins.
They weren't some alley thugs rolling around in the gutter. Impulsively murdering five nobles was a bad idea. Being the third son of a ducal house didn't grant him absolute power.
And this was the capital — the home turf of the central nobility.
If one of their own died on their own ground at the hands of an outside noble, they'd go bloodshot-eyed and tear into him by any means necessary.
Not ideal right now.
He could squeeze everything worth taking out of them first and think it over afterward. Killing them could wait.
Leon gently pried Celia's hands free.
"Thanks."
He meant it. She'd snapped him clean back to his senses.
"······You're okay now, right?"
Celia looked up at him, still uneasy.
Leon gave a short snort of a laugh and patted her shoulder.
He pulled potions from his subspace pouch and forced a few mouthfuls into each of the men. That would keep them breathing. Proper treatment would need a priest, but it was enough for now.
Only then did Celia let out a breath of relief and push her hair back from her face.
"What do we do about this? Can we clean it up before anyone shows?"
She was looking at the training hall, which had become a sea of blood.
Erasing the traces would take no small amount of time. The presence of people moving around outside was growing by the second. There was no telling when someone might walk in and discover this massacre.
Leon turned to look at her.
"You're not going to ask why I did it?"
"Why would I? It's not like you'd do this for no reason. These idiots must've had it coming."
"······."
Rather than dig for explanations, Celia was already thinking about damage control.
That was just who she was. She knew what took priority, and she was the kind of woman who acted first instead of wasting time complaining.
And suddenly, Leon thought —
Yeah.
It wasn't a new realization, but damn if he didn't like that about her.
That was when the training hall doors burst open.
"Master······!"
It was Aria, drawn by the feel of Leon's aura.
"······Ah."
Her eyes landed on Celia stuck to Leon's side, and she bit her lip in clear frustration. A quiet mutter of too late slipped out for good measure.
"Master, shall I clean this up?"
She glanced over Kendrick's unconscious crew and asked, already lifting an arm as if ready to chant a cleaning spell. She, too, couldn't have cared less about the reasons.
Leon shook his head.
"No. No need to scramble and scrub. Keeping them alive is enough. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm the victim here."
He said it without a shred of shame.
"Let's put our heads together on how much we can squeeze out of these bastards."
A grand reception hall thick with the fragrance of tea and coffee.
This was the waiting room used by visitors to the Asonia estate.
More precisely, it was where the attendants and retainers of noble trainees who'd come to the family waited.
The rear grounds housing the training grounds weren't open to just anyone. Without the proper credentials, the swordsmen at the entrance turned you away.
Even the escorts weren't allowed in — under the polite fiction that nothing could possibly go wrong inside the Asonia household. It was one of the ways the family displayed its authority in the capital.
Of course, the interior was packed with Asonia warriors and knights, so it genuinely was safe.
At any rate.
Inside the waiting room, five attendants whose masters had been admitted sat clustered together, chatting.
Their masters stuck to each other so constantly that the attendants had naturally grown close as well.
"So, everyone make it back in one piece last night?"
"Haa, don't even start. Yesterday was the day Young Master set a new personal record for number of times he threw up."
"Haha. First time I've ever seen a man walk on three legs."
The conversation opened, as always, with complaining about their superiors. And it would stay that way until the gathering broke up.
They differed in status, temperament, and age — but the sacred art of badmouthing one's boss united them all. Was there any better material for building camaraderie than a good gripe session?
"Everyone stocked up enough on 'sand'?"
"Prices have gone up again lately. Still, I've got some I bought ahead last time."
"It's getting harder and harder to source. And the hush money alone isn't cheap······."
On top of everything else, they shared the common bond of handling their masters' dirty work.
They were deep in conversation when —
Thud. Thud-thud-thud-thud—!
Something hit the floor hard enough to reverberate through the entire vast waiting room.
The source was the entrance.
"······?"
Every eye in the hall snapped toward it. The little group of five was no exception.
And then —
"Th-that's—!"
Everyone shot to their feet with cries of horror.
What came tumbling across the floor like discarded trash were five people drenched in blood. The ornate patterns woven into the carpet vanished beneath the spreading crimson.
Veins stood out on their faces. The pupils visible through half-lidded eyes were blown wide.
"Guh?! Young Master?!"
It didn't take the little group long to recognize their own masters in that mangled heap.
Which was exactly the intended effect. The people who'd carried them in had thrown them with calculated care, making sure their faces were clearly visible to the room.
The attendants' gazes swung past the bodies. They needed to see who'd brought their masters in.
Three youths in total — a boy and two girls.
"······!"
The men in the hall sucked in sharp breaths at the sight of the two girls. Their hearts gave a hard thump. The young women were peerless beauties who drew involuntary awe.
Standing between them was a boy with deep crimson eyes.
"Those look like the ones."
The people who met his gaze felt their hair stand on end.
The presence he radiated, the sheer atmosphere around him — it was on another level. Intense enough to wipe every thought of the beauties clean out of their heads in an instant.
"You lot! Get over here!"
The boy called out loudly, gesturing. His eyes locked precisely on the five attendants.
Their faces went rigid as they scrambled forward. This was no time to stand around admiring anyone's looks. Their masters had come back beaten to a pulp.
"What in the world is go—"
"You people are these bastards' attendants, right?"
The boy cut straight through him.
"······What?"
The hall froze. A cold silence settled over everything.
He cut someone off? You people? These bastards?
Blood surged to their scalps at the boy's sheer insolence.
An escort named Senbil stepped forward, face flushed red.
"What kind of outrageous nonsense is that! Identify yourself at once, and explain exactly how the young masters came to this condition!"
"Answer my question first."
The boy dug a pinky into his ear. The message was clear: stop yelling.
"You······!"
That arrogant attitude finally snapped Senbil's restraint. His hand went to the sword hilt at his waist.
"How dare you, in a place like— Huuurk!?"
A bizarre groan tore out of him and his knees buckled halfway. His stance collapsed as if someone had driven a fist into his solar plexus.
"Sir Senbil?!"
"Ghk— ghk!"
Senbil couldn't answer.
All the color had drained from his face. Shock twisted his features. He forced his head up and stared ahead with trembling eyes.
"······."
"······."
"······."
Crimson, blue, and violet eyes poured their radiance onto Senbil.
The aura the three of them unleashed crushed down on his entire body.
As if to say: draw that sword and you die.
"Khnnngh······!"
Senbil — an Expert-rank low-tier warrior — couldn't resist. He wanted to draw his blade. He couldn't.
A storm-force torrent of mana poured down and pinned him in place.
And the precision of it — not touching a single other person in the room, focused solely on him — was a level of control Senbil couldn't even dream of achieving.
"Hey. I asked you a question. Are you their attendants or not."
"······Y-yes, we are!"
At the boy's slightly heavier tone, Senbil forced the answer out through gritted teeth.
An Expert-rank warrior who couldn't even draw his sword?
The surrounding attendants stared at Senbil in disbelief, then held their breath and looked back at the boy.
Just who was this person?
And then a word left his mouth that made them doubt their own ears.
"I'm Leon Crusif."
"······!"
Crusif!
A massive shockwave rippled through the hall like wildfire.
The boy — Leon — gave Kendrick's unconscious crew a couple of casual kicks with the tip of his boot.
"Bring me these bastards' guardians."