It's Okay. I'll Hug You.
A while before Brika met Leonia.
“Oh? Isn’t that Selene?”
“Yep? The instructor who isn’t an instructor anymore.”
“Who the hell are you calling the instructor who isn’t an instructor?! …Tch! Can’t exactly deny it, though!”
“Why’d you come to the academy?”
“Yeah. Got fired, so I’m not academy staff anymore. Came here today as an investigator.”
“Investigator?”
“That’s right.”
After stepping down from her post as the academy’s swordsmanship instructor, Brika had left the academy behind. But offers flooded in from all directions, and she ended up becoming an investigator with the Security Bureau.
“I did take pride in my instructor gig, but professor work always made me itch for something more exciting. You feel the same, right?”
“Not really.”
“Hahaha, no need to hide it from me.”
“(Head tilt?)”
“Whenever you’re feeling frustrated or dead tired, come find me! I’ll buy the drinks!”
“So. Investigator job. What is it?”
“Ah, right.”
Brika pulled a sealed parchment from inside her coat. The academy’s seal was stamped clearly on it. Selene stared at it for a moment, nearly drooling, before shaking her head vigorously.
“What. Is this?”
“Call it the results of the sword examination… or something. Plus advice from various academy experts.”
“Advice?”
“Yeah. And finally, I wanted input from two more people, so here I am.”
“Advice? From who?”
“You, obviously. The strongest Sword Saint I acknowledge! And the genius Sword Saint Leonia who defeated that bastard.”
“Me and Leonia? Why?”
“Since I’m here anyway, let’s grab Leonia too. Seen her around?”
“No.”
“Hmm… Then check the training grounds first.”
“Training grounds?”
“That kid’s either there or in the student council room. I’ll head to the council room. You take the swordsmanship training area.”
“(Nod)”
“If she’s not there, come to the conference room. This is still classified, so don’t show it to anyone else.”
“(Nod)”
The two split up to search for Leonia.
“Oh! There’s Leonia!”
Brika found her first—standing with Damian—and brought her straight to the conference room.
“What’s this about?”
“There are things the Empire’s Sword needs to see… Huh? You feeling sick?”
“Eh? Ah, no, I’m fine…”
Leonia forced her expression neutral and stared at the documents lit by candlelight.
“This material is still classified. Right now, only three people have seen all of it—you, Selene, and me.”
“I heard you became an investigator… Does this relate to some incident?”
“Exactly.”
Brika pulled something from her coat.
“This?”
“A pendant. We call it a mana pendant.”
“This? The one that can temporarily store magic?”
“Yes. Extremely expensive.”
“But why does Investigator Brika—former Instructor Brika—have it?”
“High-ranking security officers and public order units carry these. That’s also confidential, so keep quiet about it.”
“Then… what magic is stored in it?”
“Remember the magic at the swordsmanship training ground?”
“The sealing spell?”
“Right.”
Brika held up the mana pendant, revealing the Security Maintenance Unit’s emblem.
“Break this and it temporarily nullifies all magic in the surrounding space.”
“Why do the security units carry them?”
“Not many in the units can use magic. But plenty are monsters with a blade. Not as good as me, of course.”
“So it’s for when you encounter a magic user?”
“Or someone suspected of it. If the Security Bureau can’t handle it, the Maintenance Unit steps in…”
“Anyone forcing the Maintenance Unit to move must be a serious threat.”
“Correct.”
Brika then tore open one of the sealed documents. Inside were multiple sketches of a masked figure.
“The criminal’s appearance?”
“Yes. This bastard has already taken down eleven.”
“Hmm…”
“The last two knew how strong he was, so they used their pendants.”
“They assumed it was a mage.”
“But it looks like that wasn’t the case.”
“Cause of death?”
“All of them were cut down by a sword.”
“Hmm…”
Brika unfolded the next sheet.
“This? A sword?”
“Yes. I found the last victim. Discovered early enough that he managed to leave a statement before dying.”
“The weapon the enemy used?”
“Correct. No demonic sword arts. Pure swordsmanship.”
“......”
“Leonia.”
Brika looked at her with grave intensity.
“Compared to us they might seem insignificant, but the Maintenance Unit guys are all accomplished martial artists far beyond ordinary soldiers.”
“And eleven of them were killed.”
“Exactly. And the weapon that bastard used is this.”
Leonia stared at the parchment again. It showed a curved blade bent like a crescent moon.
“This… a curved sword?”
“Yes. Never seen one curved this extremely in my life.”
“Hmm…”
“Academy experts confirmed there’s no technology in the empire that can produce a blade with this curvature.”
“A foreign weapon?”
“Must be.”
“So the criminal is a foreigner too?”
“Not sure yet.”
Leonia stared hard at the sword, trying to unravel the secret it held. Then a strange sense of familiarity began to creep over her.
“Huh? This is…?”
“Ah, almost forgot.”
“Eh?”
“The pattern the criminal carried. We reconstructed it from witness statements about the bracelet on his wrist.”
“Ah…”
A bracelet with a crescent moon ornament dangling from it.
“Aaaah…”
“Leonia?”
The moment she saw it. The moment her eyes returned to the curved sword drawing.
“Ah… Father…”
“Hm? What did you say?”
Memories Leonia had desperately tried to bury came flooding back.
“Ugh… uuuugh…”
Her face turned deathly pale as she staggered backward.
“What is it? Did you recognize something? Do you know the criminal?”
“C-criminal?”
Leonia looked at the drawings of the curved sword and emblem again. Nausea rose in her throat.
“Ugh… uuuugh?!”
“Leonia? Are you unwell?”
“I… I… Father… Dad…”
“Hey! Leonia!”
“S-sorry!”
“Leonia?”
Leonia fled the room as if escaping.
“S-sorry. Next time… let’s talk next time…”
And that was exactly the moment Damian saw Leonia burst out of the conference room.
“Heh. I don’t know the situation, but…”
Seeing Leonia’s completely shattered mentality, Damian didn’t miss the chance.
“Ugh… the chills again…”
Leonia trembled violently from the terrible cold crawling up the back of her neck. In her fractured mind, she began calling one name.
“Damian… Damian… I’m… so cold…”
Leonia started searching for him, and
“Damian…”
She spotted him in the distance and unconsciously moved toward him, but… suddenly collided with something.
“Huh? P-Professor Selene?”
It was Selene, returning to the conference room after failing to find Leonia.
“Found you, Student Council President.”
“S-Selene?”
“What. Are you doing here?”
“Ugh…”
Leonia, having bumped into her by accident. Unable to bear the unbearable chills, she instinctively pulled the small, soft figure before her into her arms.
“I’m… too… cold…”
“Cold?”
To drive away the unrelenting chill, Leonia hugged Selene even more fiercely.
“What the hell is that girl doing…”
Damian, who had quickly hidden at Selene’s appearance, watched with gritted teeth.
“Why does she keep showing up and ruining everything…”
The situation was bad. A completely broken person would cling to anyone. That meant Leonia might end up latching onto Selene instead of him.
I can’t allow that.
Damian, unwilling to lose the fish he had so carefully hooked, acted immediately.
“Hup?!”
The tighter Leonia held Selene, the more intense the unfamiliar cold became.
“Ugh… too… too cold… what is this…”
At this rate Leonia might notice the abnormality happening inside her own body. But Damian decided the risk was worth taking.
She’s mine! Not yours!
He began lowering the temperature of the cold energy he had planted in Leonia to the extreme—to a level that even someone like her, who wasn’t an ordinary human, could barely endure.
Get away. Staying close will only make you colder.
Woooong
“Hup?!”
Leonia slowly realized something was wrong amid the unbearable cold. This time she tried to pull away from Selene.
“Student Council President.”
“Ugh…”
If things continued, Leonia’s instincts would reject Selene. Human instincts were surprisingly easy to manipulate.
“Leonia.”
“Hic… hic…”
“Cold?”
But.
Crack
“What?”
Damian hadn’t known. He hadn’t known what kind of being stood beside Leonia…
Squeeze
Selene quietly wrapped her arms around Leonia.
“It’s okay… it’s okay…”
Leonia writhed in agony, trapped by the fierce cold. Selene gently raised a finger.
Poke
She touched the back of Leonia’s neck.
“Kuh?!”
In that instant, Damian felt it. The magic he had planted.
“How?”
Plonibis vanished in the blink of an eye…
“What the—what the hell? How did you erase my special technique?”
A flustered Damian stared at the pair.
Damn it. But she drank a considerable amount of paralyzing poison earlier. It should last at least a week.
He quickly recalculated. He would let them go for now and restart from the beginning.
Then I’ll find Leonia again, exhausted from the anesthetic—
But.
“Leonia. Body… not good.”
Huh?!
Damian froze at the scene unfolding before him as he tried to slip away.
Chu
What is she doing?!
Selene, supporting the collapsing Leonia, kissed her on the lips without hesitation.
“Uuuuuuugh?!”
A type of rage Damian had never experienced before erupted inside his chest. And within that rage, a deep humiliation surged.
“My… woman…”
The humiliation of having his woman stolen by another woman—not even a man—began to boil over.
“I’ll kill you both.”
Damian’s anger stripped away his reason. He looked ready to charge at them immediately.
But at that moment.
“Ugh?!”
She turned her head.
Selene turned her head.
Her gaze locked onto one exact spot.
Himself—the one he thought no one could possibly detect.
She stared straight at Damian.
“Gasp?!”
“Haa… haa…”
Damian fled the area in panic.
Leonia’s first kiss stolen by someone else? There was no time to care about that now. His instincts screamed at him.
Run!
The man who had manipulated others by exploiting their instincts was now obeying his own and running for his life.
“What the… what the hell was that?!”
Meanwhile, Leonia felt the chills and exhaustion that had assaulted her vanish completely.
“Huh? Professor Selene?”
Leonia staggered to her feet.
“Hey? What happened?”
Brika, who had just burst from the conference room, ran into them.
“What… what was that? Suddenly my body felt exhausted and chills…”
“Chills?”
Brika tilted her head at the word.
“Magic. Back of neck.”
“Huh?”
But the moment she heard Selene’s calm, concise explanation—
“Leonia back of neck. Freezing magic.”
“Wait… what did you just say?”
Brika grabbed Selene as if something had suddenly clicked.
“Tell me more! Give me every detail!”
The next day.
“Stay calm… I haven’t been caught yet. Yeah…”
Damian headed to the student council room, pretending it was just another ordinary day.
“Hey, you’re here?”
And there stood Leonia by the window, looking noticeably healthier than the day before.
“Ha, Student Council President. Haha, a-are you feeling all right?”
Recovered? No way. She’s just forcing herself to look fine.
Damian hid his killing intent and took out the pendant. Concentrating freezing magic in his right hand, he approached Leonia.
Just start over from the beginning. That’s all.
“By the way, how are the swordsmanship preparations coming?”
“Going all right, I suppose.”
“Of course you’re not worried, right? Beating Professor Selene should be easy for you.”
“You think so?”
Damian kept talking to distract her as he drew closer. Leonia remained by the window with her back to him.
“After watching you two fight with long swords, Professor Selene doesn’t seem like much of a threat. Or am I wrong?”
“Hmm… is that so?”
“Yes.”
The distance between them had shrunk to just two large strides. Damian held his breath and reached toward the back of Leonia’s neck.
“That sounds strange.”
“Huh?”
At that moment.
Slash!
“Hup?!”
Damian felt cold steel slice across his throat.
“I don’t recall ever dueling Professor Selene with long swords in front of others, do I?”
“Kuh, hack?!”