"Quickly, wash it off quickly."
"M-Mr. Blaine, I'll do it! It's hot!"
Kenis waved his hands in a panic, his face stiff with fright, at Leonardo’s attempt to push his head into the steaming stream while holding it down.
However, because the stream water was far too hot for a normal person to put their hand in, he fumbled, repeatedly dipping his hand in and pulling it out. Frustrated by such sluggishness, Leonardo irritably fixed the back of his neck and roughly rubbed his face with one hand, scooping up water.
It was to wash off the venom on his cheek and neck, but when the hot water touched the skin already reddened with blisters, Kenis writhed in pain.
His trembling hands couldn’t do anything, but Leonardo was in no state to consider every bit of pain right now. Because he had used attack magic on the surface, not in a tunnel, pursuit might have followed.
His touch—hardly something that could be called gentle—scrubbed Kenis’s face roughly, as if washing off grime.
Meanwhile, Alec was looking at the southern mountain peaks with binoculars, searching for the source of the huge roar that had shaken the entire peninsula a moment ago. Hearing Kenis’s pitiful groans beside him, he turned his head and said casually,
"Be a little gentler. You’ll kill the kid like that."
"You, who nearly died, just shut up—."
As Luggage #2, whose combat ability wasn’t much different from Luggage #1 currently being washed, added his commentary, Leonardo shot Alec a sharp glare.
Then, he suddenly stopped mid-sentence, his hand twitching, eyes widening with sharp tension. Thanks to that, Kenis—who had been holding his breath and flailing—finally managed to pry Leonardo’s hand away from his face.
As he barely opened one stinging eye, looking like a drenched rat, Leonardo suddenly stood up from his sitting position as if sensing some shift in the air. Then, holding his breath, he scanned the surroundings and fixed his gaze in a certain direction, becoming intensely alert.
"..."
Kenis, staring up at him with a puzzled expression at this abrupt change, suddenly caught a familiar scent brushing the tip of his nose. Soon, his expression also hardened, and he looked blankly at Alec beside him.
In the meantime, Alec had packed his backpack and taken out his pocket watch to check the time. As Kenis’s gaze landed on him, he put the watch away and said to the two in front of him, grinning,
"A farewell earlier than expected."
At Alec’s words, as if realizing something, Kenis hurriedly got to his feet, wiping his wet face with his forearm.
Eventually, Leonardo—who had been staring off into the distance—spoke.
"He’s coming."
Then he turned around, his face solemn.
He met Kenis’s and Alec’s eyes once each, then finally spoke in a low voice, as if to etch it firmly into their minds,
"Listen carefully to what I say from now on."
****
Hugo stepped onto the scorched ground and placed his hand on a broken structure.
Ahead, traces of mana stretched out in a straight line, still intact. The sparks that still held heat and occasionally crackled up hinted that “he” had been here only moments ago.
Brushing the smooth surface of the structure pierced by mana, Hugo closed his eyes and stood still.
There are things one can only feel when sight is blocked. The rustling carried by the wind, subtle changes in temperature—and instinctive attraction.
After a while, his closed eyelids slowly lifted, and the crimson twilight tinted his blue pupils. The mysterious color stared ahead as if having found the answer, and the white steam rising around him extinguished all the flickering sparks on the ground.
Gazing at the heat turning cold with icy eyes, Hugo silently thought,
‘I absolutely won’t let go this time.’
Letting go of that hand once was enough. There wouldn’t be a second time.
Quietly renewing that resolve, Hugo vanished and moved elsewhere.
The place where he reappeared with a flash of light was the middle of a dense forest. The tall trees meeting the sunset were flushed red, and the faint fog drifting between them scattered the light, making it dazzling.
Because of that, Hugo furrowed his brows slightly, kicked a tree stem caught on his foot aside, and walked about five steps before suddenly stopping. When he looked down, there were traces of artificially cut marks on the stem he had kicked with his military boots.
The unusually blue pupils that had been quietly examining it slowly lifted and swept leisurely across the towering trees. Amid the fine droplets suspended in the air, he sensed a very secretive, cautious movement.
Perhaps “he” didn’t realize it, but to Hugo, this fog-filled forest was practically home ground—its every nerve laid out like an extension of himself.
Strength slowly gathered in Hugo’s right hand holding the greatsword.
He needed only one moment.
If he provoked him carelessly, this agile and capricious fellow—who gnawed at his insides—would surely be startled and run.
With that thought, as he began turning his head, his gaze landed on a rocky hill hidden among the trees.
In an instant, he vanished in a flash of light.
Kwaaang—!
A thick ice pillar shot up before Leonardo’s eyes as he darted past, hiding behind a huge rock. Startled by the chill slashing right in front of his face as if grazing him, he stopped in midair, collected himself, and immediately tried to change direction.
However, before he could even move from that spot, blue-green ice bars shot diagonally up from the rock beside him, surrounding him from all sides as if closing a trap, leaving him unable to escape.
The densely rising ice pillars—thicker than the lush forest—blocked Leonardo’s vision, and the sharp tips narrowed like a funnel, gathering toward one point. At the very end of that point, a single narrow exit was visible.
The exit angled slightly downward, and Leonardo, who sensed someone approaching from below, didn’t dare go out. Even without seeing, he already knew who it was.
Catching his breath with breaks in between, Leonardo stopped moving and quietly stared at the only open exit, listening intently.
The noble gait revealed by steady footsteps on the ground conveyed a will that would never let go—and a heavy composure that made it believable—raising the tension even more.
The footsteps drew closer and closer. Eventually, black military boots stepped into view on the soft leaf-covered dirt. Seeing that, Leonardo leaned back against the rock, one hand pressed against the cold pillar, and swallowed dryly.
Hugo slowly steadied his breathing and approached the conical trap he had created.
By now, Leonardo should have had enough time to break the pillars and flee, but the silence was almost unsettling.
Pausing to examine the air around the figure within, Hugo took several more steps, tension unbroken. Then he lifted his head toward the narrow entrance that could barely fit three people side by side.
Hugo’s eyelids twitched. His Adam’s apple moved slowly up and down.
Because he saw Leonardo looking down at him from inside.
His momentum wasn’t as fierce as expected, but the golden eyes he hadn’t seen in a long time looked rather startled, and Hugo immediately lowered himself, placing one knee on the ground. He sat down, then slowly set the greatsword on the ground to ease Leonardo’s wariness.
Even so, his gaze never left him.
"Leonardo."
At the cautious voice calling his name, Leonardo flinched.
The golden eyes that had been staring downward flicked very briefly to the left—toward something unseen—and then returned. Watching this, Hugo gazed up with tightly restrained tension, hoping he wouldn’t make any rash moves.
In the quiet forest, a wind like the one that had circled them before they almost crashed together drifted sadly between them.
Hugo relaxed his tense brows. Then, quite earnestly, he extended his right hand toward the man looking at him.
Leonardo’s gaze dropped to Hugo’s carefully outstretched hand, then lifted to meet his eyes. His face looked more worn than when Hugo last saw him.
Perhaps because of that, he suddenly had the impression that Hugo’s usually cold, rational eyes seemed almost pitiful. That couldn’t be true, but...
Yet the voice that followed made it clear it wasn’t just an illusion.
Hugo looked at Leonardo with much softer eyes. Then, extending his hand a little closer, he spoke gently, masking his impatience.
"Come here ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) quickly."
