“...”
Whenever the moment came to explain something to this person, his spine always seemed to chill. Especially when he didn’t even know what he was supposed to explain.
Leonardo kept his eyes lowered as he gently withdrew his hand from Hugo’s forearm. At the same time, he leaned back, putting some distance between them. His mind filled with What am I explaining? Me? When? as he searched his memory for what the other was asking about.
But no matter how he tried to hide it, the tension showed on his face. Perhaps because of that, Hugo let out a barely audible laugh as he watched.
At the sudden chuckle, Leonardo’s eyebrows twitched, and Hugo reached out to gently rub his cheek and the side of his neck.
“I’m not interrogating you, so you don’t need to be tense.”
Leonardo’s eyes narrowed slightly. He lifted his shoulders a touch and pushed Hugo’s arm away, saying:
“Tense? Why would I be tense?”
“If that’s not the case, then that’s good.”
Hugo withdrew his hand, still smiling. Leonardo twisted his lips, disliking the expression that seemed to know everything.
If someone suddenly set the mood like this and asked, anyone would tense up even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. With the Commander—rumored to be frightening—asking for an explanation, it would be stranger if one’s breath didn’t catch.
Leonardo briefly looked away, ran a hand through his hair, and let out a short, dry chuckle. He didn’t want to empathize with the feelings of criminals who feared Kazad like this.
“What did I say I’d explain? I don’t remember.”
Leonardo shot back as if it weren’t a big deal. At that, Hugo’s face, which had relaxed somewhat, hardened at once. He didn’t beat around the bush and went straight to the point.
“When you were facing the mother body in the plains.”
The golden eyes that had been listening lightly flicked up. Hugo continued:
“The southern sky was instantly covered in golden light, and an explosive energy suddenly appeared before my eyes.”
“...”
“I knew it was you, but I couldn’t be certain it was entirely you. It was very different from the energy I knew.”
Focused, Leonardo immediately recalled the moment he had taken the amplifier and appeared before him. The image of himself warning him not to come, saying he would explain later, flashed vividly as well.
“You said then. ‘I’ll explain later’... I think I have the right to ask now what happened while I wasn’t looking, what the source of that power was. So tell me the truth, Leonardo.”
At Hugo’s serious voice, Leonardo’s gaze turned just as serious.
The right to ask?
Since Agrizendro had brought him back from the brink of going berserk, he did have the right to ask, if one wanted to be strict about it. But this person was careful even with a single question. Hearing him say right made it seem like he wouldn’t let him go until he got a satisfactory answer today.
But his statement about explaining back then was something he had blurted out unavoidably, with no proper alternative in an urgent situation. As the time came to explain words he’d spilled like water, his mouth went dry.
Leonardo licked the corner of his lips and stayed silent for a moment. Since Alec Siles was involved in this matter, some answers would inevitably need excuses. As he organized his thoughts without avoiding eye contact, Hugo slowly rose from his chair and approached him.
Leonardo naturally lifted his head, and his nape stiffened for no reason under the blue eyes looking down. Instead of urging him, Hugo sat down beside him. Then he pulled the side table in front of him and straightened the maps and newspapers on it.
It was a completely meaningless action, but to Leonardo it felt like pressure—like he would wait until he spoke.
There was no point in postponing it; he would have to face it eventually. Leonardo opened his mouth plainly.
“I took an amplifier.”
Hugo’s hand, which had been folding the newspaper in half, froze midair. He set the paper down and looked over with startled eyes.
“An amplifier?”
“Yeah. A mana amplifier.”
The blue eyes sharpened at once, as if he’d heard something he shouldn’t have. Mana amplifiers occasionally seen on the market weren’t rare drugs. The problem was that most were fraudulent items sold for high prices despite having no effect. Worse, they often contained strange additives to mimic results, so they couldn’t be considered safe for the body at all.
As the Commander of the Council who had heard countless related cases, Hugo immediately had a bad feeling. And yet, hadn’t the Leonardo who appeared before him at that time been pouring out endless mana as if he truly had consumed an amplifier? Rather, the uncontrollable power had pushed him to the brink of going berserk, to the point where it seemed to devour his mana—making it look useless.
Hugo unconsciously glanced at the prominent choker on Leonardo’s neck. Then, furrowing his brow, he asked again in a slightly sterner voice:
“Where did you get something like that? Proper mana amplifiers essentially don’t exist in the empire. Their origins are unclear, and the manufacturing process is opaque. Knowing what it could do to your body, why did you—”
“If you look around a bit in back alleys, they’re everywhere. And there was no other way then. I had to do something.”
Leonardo deliberately glossed over the source while insisting that taking the amplifier had been unavoidable.
At his words, Hugo’s anger flared. It wasn’t so much anger at Leonardo for talking back, but at him for repeatedly taking reckless actions without understanding the dangers.
Earlier, he’d said he ate a plant called Mendelias that grew near graves and teemed with bacteria. And now, on top of that, he said he’d taken a mana amplifier that couldn’t possibly have been registered as an official drug to deal with the mother body.
He was safe in the end, but if this kept happening, who knew what problems might arise. Leonardo had extensive knowledge in many fields, but it seemed he handled dangerous things—forbidden magic and illegal drugs circulating underground—without hesitation, and it made Hugo deeply uneasy as he listened.
He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a deep sigh. As he cooled his heated head, he extended his hand toward Leonardo. Leonardo stared blankly at Hugo’s palm and asked, as if he didn’t understand:
“What?”
“Hand it over right now. That mana amplifier.”
“...What?”
“Just possessing an illegal drug without official permission is a serious crime. I won’t punish you, so hand it over to me right now. And don’t ever touch drugs like that again.”
Leonardo blinked, momentarily dumbfounded. A few words snagged in his mind, like a button had been pressed. I won’t punish you—at a time like this? Heated, he frowned and argued:
“What? Serious crime? Punishment? Come on, is that important right now? Without that amplifier, the mother body might’ve rampaged outside the peninsula!”
As the agitated Leonardo spoke deliberately and clearly, Hugo watched him with a displeased face. Finding the reaction even more absurd, Leonardo ignored Hugo’s attempt to continue and shot back:
“I know it wasn’t a good method either. But you asked me to tell the truth, so I admitted it was an amplifier without hiding anything. Couldn’t you just let it go? Even if it’s an illegal drug legally, in the end, it killed the mother body and everything turned out fine, didn’t it?”
Thinking about it now, he had been the one to say he would explain first, but back then it had been an urgent situation where every second counted. After risking his life to take the amplifier and successfully eliminating the mother body, a sense of futility washed over him at having to make excuses. Leonardo felt deeply hurt by Hugo’s words, which seemed to pin him down over something not so important.
“Do you really have to judge right and wrong even here? Why do you—... ah...”
Afraid inappropriate words might come out, Leonardo bit his lip hard and forced his emotions down. Still, he glared at Hugo with sharp, resentful eyes. But Hugo didn’t back down either.
“...You’re asking if I can’t let it go? Leonardo, if I weren’t trying to let it go, this wouldn’t end with just this much.”
“...”
“...Right, my words about punishment were a mistake. That wasn’t an appropriate word to bring up now. I apologize for that. But I wasn’t trying to punish you, and that wasn’t the important part of what I meant. The mana amplifier is simply too dangerous for you to have. So give it to me before I have to find it myself.”
At Hugo’s words—still carrying a coercive edge—Leonardo’s frustration steadily rose. So much for letting it go. He couldn’t understand why he was being questioned as if he’d done something wrong, or why he had to do as he was told. Because of that, his next response came more from defiance than reason.
“No.”
“Leonardo.”
“I don’t understand why I have to argue with you again.”
“...This isn’t an argument—”
“Do you think I wanted to use that stuff? Why do you think I took it? I took it to save people. Because I promised you I would save them if necessary. So why do you have to corner me like I’ve committed some great crime? Shouldn’t you be thanking me instead?”
As blood rushed to his head, his condition rapidly worsened. He could feel himself growing more sensitive with it, but Leonardo couldn’t easily rein himself in.
Saving people had been his own choice. Because of that, he hadn’t wanted to boast, but when words that made him shrink came before the words he wanted to hear, his nerves were stretched tighter than they needed to be.
Sensing his agitation, Hugo—trying to keep his own composure, at least—slowly closed his eyes, opened them, and spoke calmly:
“Of course, I’m grateful to you beyond what I can fully express. Not just me, but everyone who survived thanks to you will think the same.”
At Hugo’s reply, Leonardo steadied his quickened breathing. But his expression was still raw with hurt, and his ears twisted the other’s words.
Hugo sighed, rubbed /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ his eyes slowly, then caught Leonardo’s forearm and said:
“But Leonardo. I’m worried about you.”
Unlike before, the deep furrow in his blue eyes painfully carried the words he didn’t want to say:
“I can’t leave you alone because I’m worried. You almost died because of that amplifier, didn’t you?”
