Leonardo’s eyelids moved slightly. His face went blank as if recalling a memory, and he asked back briefly:
“Huh?”
His agitated golden eyes were very busy, seemingly digging through his past words. He hesitated before asking again:
“You’re saying I said something like that? When?”
“Yesterday, and on the day of the examination too.”
Hugo thought about being more specific, but waited a moment for Leonardo to recall on his own, fearing it might strain his mind.
Soon, as if the outline of the memory became clear, Leonardo’s pupils expanded, retreating into the shadows. It was a sufficient signal for Hugo, who had been watching his eyes intently.
“Whenever you were confused, you called someone that. Judging from the impression of that person in your words, it doesn’t seem to be a good image.”
Hugo asked slowly while observing Leonardo’s complexion:
“Has that person ever demanded blood from you? Or have you been used by them?”
As he finished his last words, he stared at the black string on Leonardo’s neck. Today, more than ever, it stood out in stark contrast against his white neck.
Leonardo, who had fallen asleep almost to the point of fainting last evening, was still too early to be judged mentally stable. For that reason, Hugo hadn’t intended to mention this topic right away, but since Leonardo had brought up the blood test first, there seemed no reason to put it off.
As the persistent gaze followed him, Leonardo’s expression gradually hardened, as if he had misspoken. His Adam’s apple bobbed slowly as he unconsciously swallowed. He kept his mouth tightly shut with his eyes lowered, then slowly raised his eyelids to stare at Hugo.
“I don’t remember.”
Hugo’s cold gaze narrowed at the answer that sounded like an evasion.
“More than that. When we were returning to the imperial capital from Fidele territory, [N O V E L I G H T] was what you gave me also a sleeping pill?”
This time, a question came back instead of an answer. Leonardo’s lips were trembling slightly.
“Why did you make me take that? What did you do to me secretly?”
Leonardo asked as if demanding an explanation, but Hugo didn’t get caught up in it. Rather, Leonardo’s attempt to press him seemed, in Hugo’s view, transparently like trying to avoid answering.
“I answered the first question, so now I’d like to hear your answer. If you speak first, I’ll answer too.”
Leonardo frowned, feeling like it was some kind of deal. If it really was a sleeping pill, he was the one who should be hearing an explanation—so why did he have to find out the truth in this way?
However, no matter how much Leonardo was under his protection, Hugo had no intention of easily revealing his political weaknesses. The fact that he had swept away the Imperial Knights with a flood while fleeing with Leonardo was top-secret information that should not be known externally. Wasn’t that why he had gone to the trouble of staging it as an accident during the dam-release process, even owing a favor to Cordelia Hareth?
Of course, he had responded rather shamelessly when he should have been more humble, but sometimes a firm response was necessary to coax a child who wouldn’t open his mouth.
Hugo stared intently with a face that said, Speak up. Seeming to read that look, Leonardo frowned and remained silent.
Soon, his downcast eyelashes gradually covered his inner thoughts. Hugo then applied a little pressure to the hand he was holding.
“Is your fear of blood draws also because of that person?”
At that moment, the golden eyes that had looked anxious quickly rose to meet the blue eyes head-on. For about twenty seconds, the two faced off in silence as if in a staring contest.
As only the sound of rustling leaves spread around, Leonardo was the first to open his mouth.
“Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone.”
His lips moved as if about to reveal the truth. Was the word “secret” so stimulating?
Feeling a thrill spread through his brain, Hugo held his breath and nodded instead of giving a half-hearted affirmation.
Leonardo seemed to open his mouth reluctantly, turning his gaze elsewhere as he continued:
“They draw blood four or five days before going into battle and freeze it. Then they inject it back into the body right before the battle.”
It took Hugo a moment to understand the meaning of those calmly spoken words. His eyes slowly widened as he asked back:
“You mean they draw blood and then inject it back?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Then the body feels strangely light.”
Hugo knit his brows and tilted his head slightly. As the incomprehensible silence stretched, Leonardo added:
“It’s a method that’s been widely used for a long time to increase soldiers’ killing ability. They say it enhances physical abilities or something. Since blood is just drawn from the body, it probably cost less than developing drugs. But in the middle of the battlefield, the sanitary conditions were terrible, so many guys died from bacterial infections. There were also unexplained heart attacks. I don’t know about now, but it was a common method until five years ago.”
Although it was different from what he’d expected, Hugo listened attentively as the outline of the blood-draw trauma seemed to take shape. Drawing blood and then transfusing it back after a certain time had passed—he wasn’t sure of the exact principle, but it seemed to be a method of improving performance by increasing the amount of blood in the body.
Hugo stared into the golden eyes and asked quietly:
“You have experience with this too?”
Leonardo’s gaze, which had been thrown far away, returned once again.
“Dozens, no, hundreds of times.”
“...”
“Always during the war participation period.”
As he answered in a calm tone, Hugo’s mind went blank.
“The more blood for transfusion, the better, so those subject to disciplinary action were sometimes forcibly dragged away to have their blood drawn. There was also a rumor that the effect was better the stronger the subject’s blood was, so it was common for people to die from rejection reactions or shock after recklessly transfusing blood from animals, monsters, or other people.”
The stories coming from Leonardo’s mouth were no different from unverified human experiments. It was an appalling and cruel course of action, to the point of seeming foolish.
Even prisoners of war aren’t treated like that. Although the imperial army was a very closed organization, to think such practices had been prevalent in the past. Along with Leonardo’s strangely calm tone, Hugo felt a chill run down the back of his neck.
“...I see.”
He muttered softly, staring at the pile of documents on the table that had already become secondary. He could roughly understand why Leonardo had seizures whenever someone tried to extract something from his body.
If he had always repeated this kind of action right before battle, the blood-draw needle must have been like a signal flare for battle in his mind. Hugo already knew from yesterday how devastating and desolate the meaning of “battlefield” was to him. In the end, the process of extracting something from the body and injecting it back seemed to be a kind of regularly learned war trauma for him.
As he organized his thoughts, Hugo felt his spine go cold.
“Then... was your blood also indiscriminately drawn and put into many bodies in this way? Since you would have been an undisputed ‘strong being’.”
Leonardo’s face, which had been speaking quite well, darkened rapidly upon hearing the question. Although his skin itself was pale to the point of being white, the darkness around his eyes deepened and receded repeatedly with the shifting shadow of the parasol.
“I...”
But more than anything, his expression—as if recalling memories—was not good at all.
“No, it wasn’t like that for me.”
It was an unexpected answer, but Hugo’s eyelids eased in relief. On the other hand, whether from the wind or not, Leonardo’s eyelashes trembled finely.
“My blood, they said it was precious... so it could only be used for me...”
The gentle breeze brushing his cheeks felt like the harbinger of a cutting wind, turning the air chilling. Hugo focused on the words that had come from his mouth.
Precious?
Well, he was the undisputed war hero of Raina Logia. The imperial army’s greatest strength, ultimate weapon, final bastion.
Some people get headaches or dizziness even with small amounts of blood drawn if it doesn’t suit their constitution. It would be troublesome for the empire if Leonardo suffered a decline from having large amounts of his blood drawn unnecessarily.
In other words, calling it “precious blood” wasn’t wrong, if one had to argue the point. But why did the word “precious” feel so discomforting?
Hugo thought that discomfort came from the look in Leonardo’s eyes. There was an abyss not yet revealed in his shadowed gaze—an even deeper abyss that he dared not look into.
At that moment, Leonardo opened his mouth:
“There was one more person.”
“What?”
“Someone who could use my blood.”
Hugo’s lips stiffened. He instinctively knew from the context that this was “that person.”
“Who is it?”
It was a more careful and lower voice than ever. Between his shadowed eyes, blue pupils emitted a soft glow.
