Chapter 474: The Errand Boy
(3rd Person POV)
Leonard moved through their attacks with the ease of someone who had stopped reacting and started deciding — using everything Naruto had drilled into him over three days, working it to the fullest. By any measure, he was winning. Five former party members, and not one of them could land a clean hit.
Arthur sat back and sipped his tea. Naruto stood beside him with his arms folded. Neither of them looked particularly concerned about how this was going.
Ten minutes later, the «Titan’s Wrath» burned itself out.
The crash that followed was immediate. Aldric and Brom, who had been moving like forces of nature minutes ago, were now on the ground with their bodies turning against them — veins still visible, limbs trembling, the particular exhaustion of a body that had been pushed far past what it was built to handle. They were breathing, but neither of them was getting up anytime soon.
With the two heaviest fighters down, the shape of the room changed. Charlotte and Vera stood at the back, the fight draining out of both of them as the reality of what had just happened settled in.
Vera’s knees hit the floor. "Impossible—" Her voice was barely holding together. She stared at Leonard like she was looking at something that shouldn’t exist. "How can you be this powerful? You were our errand boy! You were nothing — this can’t be real, this can’t be happening—"
"Th-this has to be a dream," Charlotte said, her staff hanging loose at her side. "There is no way — no way — that we just lost to someone like you. You’re supposed to be trash!"
Arthur and Naruto exchanged a glance. Arthur took another sip of his tea.
Leonard looked at the two of them for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and entirely without heat.
"No matter how much you want this to be something else, it’s real." He held their eyes. "Back in the party, I gave everything I had. Every day. You never noticed — maybe you never looked — but I was always there, keeping things running, keeping everyone alive and together. I believed I was part of something. I thought we were friends." A small pause. "I trained harder so I could be more useful to you all. Picked up skills nobody asked me to learn. Did the work nobody else wanted to do."
He shook his head slowly. "And in the end, all of that was a mistake, apparently. The result was getting thrown out like a used rag."
He was quiet for a moment, his gaze settling on Charlotte.
"Even so — I don’t regret any of it. Because without you all, I wouldn’t have become someone who always pushes past his limits. You gave me that, at least. So for what it’s worth — thank you."
Charlotte’s expression cracked. She swallowed hard, despair written plainly across her face — and then something shifted behind her eyes, something calculating working its way through the guilt.
"Le-Leonard," she said, her voice going soft and careful. "Please, just let us go. Like you said yourself — we were your friends. We can bring you back to the party. We’ll even make you our leader. How does that sound?"
"Y-yes!" Vera latched onto it immediately, nodding hard. "Leonard as the leader of the Six of Diamonds — an S-Rank party leader! That’s not a bad deal at all, right?"
From the floor, Aldric’s eyes flew open. He tried to move and couldn’t — body refusing, injuries and side effects pinning him down — so he settled for a hoarse rasp that carried every ounce of disbelief he had left. "Y-you — you witches—!"
Then Brom’s voice came, rough and winded but unmistakable. "...I agree with them."
Aldric turned his head slowly toward his sworn brother. The betrayal on his face was complete.
"Et tu, Brom?" he managed, barely above a whisper.
Brom didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes on Leonard, something tired and genuine in them now, the fight entirely gone.
Arthur watched all of it unfold with genuine interest, his eyes moving from face to face like a man savoring something rare.
’What a sight,’ Arthur thought. ’I never thought I’d witness something like this in person. I am very glad I hired Leonard.’
He watched Aldric’s expression as Brom’s agreement sank in — the particular look of a man watching his sworn brother side against him in real time — and felt something deeply satisfying settle in his chest.
’He-he. Top ten anime betrayal moments, right there.’
"More tea?" Naruto asked, appearing at his elbow with the pot at exactly the right moment.
"Absolutely." Arthur held out his cup.
The two of them stood there refilling tea while Leonard’s former party collapsed around them, as though nothing especially remarkable was happening.
Leonard looked at the faces before him — people he had known for years, cycling through desperation and calculation with the speed of someone flipping through a book — and said, quietly, "Forgive me. Like I said, I won’t be returning to the party."
He glanced back at Arthur and Naruto. "I have new people now. And for the first time, I actually feel like I belong somewhere." A small pause. "That’s not something I’m walking away from."
The room went silent.
Then Charlotte’s eyes filled, tears spilling down her cheeks, her expression folding into something that was probably meant to look heartbroken. "A-are you just going to abandon us like this—"
"Will you stop this crap." Leonard’s voice came out flat. Charlotte flinched. "You’re my childhood friend, Charlotte. When they were throwing me out — when every single one of them was calling me deadweight to my face — I looked at you. You know what you said? ’What would you have me say? This is our decision.’ That’s what you said. Word for word."
Charlotte’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. Her head dropped.
"I really did think we were something, back then," Leonard said, almost to himself. "Turns out that was just me."
"W-we can still—" Charlotte looked up and stopped. Leonard’s eyes had gone cold in a way she had never seen from him before, and whatever she’d been about to say died in her throat.
"Enough," he said. "You came here to go after my employer. I’m reporting all of this to the guild and having your licenses revoked."
Vera scrambled to her feet, pointing at him with a trembling finger. "How can you do this to us!? You’re this strong — you were always this strong — why did you hide it!? If we’d known, we never would have kicked you out!"
"That’s right!" Charlotte’s composure shattered entirely, something wild coming into her eyes. "This is your fault! You should have shown us from the beginning — this is all on you!"
Leonard looked at them for a long moment. Then he shook his head. "I guess that’s where we are."
He moved. Two clean strikes, and both women crumpled quietly to the floor.
"You two." Leonard turned to Aldric and Brom. "Tell me who sent you here, and things will go easier for you. Stay quiet, and I’ll make sure the guild comes down on you as hard as possible. Your choice."
"As if I’d tell you anything," Aldric rasped.
Brom cracked almost immediately. "I-I’ll talk! J-just please, go easy on us!"
"Brom, you—!" Aldric’s voice broke with exhaustion and fury.
Leonard let Brom speak. It came out in a rush — the weeks of dwindling funds, the Underground Guild, Master Delly approaching them, all of it.
Leonard’s eyes sharpened. "Master Delly."
He glanced over at Arthur.
Arthur’s expression hadn’t moved an inch.
He set his cup down, stood, and walked over at a pace that suggested he had nowhere in particular to be. Aldric and Brom were spent — barely able to sit upright — but the moment Arthur stepped into their space, something heavy settled over both of them that had nothing to do with their injuries. They couldn’t have explained it. They just felt it.
Arthur stopped beside Leonard and put a hand on his shoulder. "Good work. I’ll add a bonus to your next payment."
Leonard scratched the back of his head. "Ha-ha, it’s really nothing."
Aldric and Brom watched the exchange. Leonard — their former errand boy, the man they’d thrown out without a second thought — was standing there being praised by someone who radiated that kind of pressure, and receiving it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
They had so many questions and no strength left to ask any of them.
"As for you two," Arthur said, turning to look at them with a pleasant expression, "it seems you didn’t take much away from our last meeting at the inn. I suppose I’ll have to make this lesson a bit more memorable."
"Wh-what are you going to do—" Aldric tried to push himself back, one leg dragging uselessly beneath him.
Brom made the same attempt with the same result.
"Nothing complicated," Arthur said warmly. "I just want a finger. One each."
The chill that went through both of them was immediate and total.
They didn’t have time to react. Arthur moved — and then he was already stepping back, and each of them was staring at a hand that was missing something it had possessed a moment ago.
He held both fingers up and considered them pleasantly. "A good reminder, don’t you think?"
Aldric and Brom looked at their own hands. Looked at the fingers in Arthur’s palm. Looked at their hands again.
"A-ahhhhhhh—!!!"
The screaming lasted approximately three seconds before both of them passed out entirely.
