Alex studied Leon in silence.
It seemed the Crown Prince wished to drive not only the Holy Knight Order but his own cousin into a trap from which there was no return.
I intend to appoint Sir Leon Miloyonif Aranias as the commanding officer of this expedition. He will do splendidly.
The Crown Prince’s eyes as he had smiled and said those words — they refused to leave Alex’s memory.
Alex closed his eyes hard, then opened them. What he was about to say was something no Knight Commander should ever say. And yet, as Alex the man — a man who had tried his whole life to live with honor — he could not hold it back.
“Leon. You are not like the rest of us. Whether you go to your father for help or find some other way to remove yourself from this expedition… I will not think less of you for it.”
He had forced the words out, but even as he spoke, there was a thread of fear — what if Leon actually agrees? And in the face of that contradiction within himself, Alex Leding felt the sharpest disillusionment he had known since becoming Commander.
But Leon’s reply was disarmingly absolute.
“I could not, even if I wished to. And I do not wish to.”
“…Why not?”
“Because there are things I must protect.”
“Things you must protect?”
“A person I must protect.”
“…Whoever it is — to protect anyone, you have to survive first. You understand that, don’t you?”
“…Thank you for the counsel, Commander.”
“…….”
“If there is nothing further, I’ll take my leave.”
Leon rose and rendered a precise salute.
“Hey — Leon.”
Alex called out, stopping him. He felt that something had to be said. The man before him had always seemed alone in the world, despite having everything — and the uneasy premonition that this might be the last time Alex saw him pressed at his back.
Sensing something unusual in his Commander’s manner, Leon paused and replied without resistance.
“Yes.”
“It’s all right to take the easier path sometimes. To bow your head to those stronger than you, now and then. No one will blame you for it. Everyone lives that way.”
This was something Alex had been telling himself repeatedly since leaving the Crown Prince’s audience — a way of rationalizing his own behavior.
Hearing it, Leon smiled.
It was the kind of smile that made even a grizzled, middle-aged man like Alex feel his chest drop.
Look at him, even his smiles come more easily now. They say a man changes when his time is near. God, don’t let it be that, you rotten junior.
Whether Leon sensed Alex’s thoughts or not, he kept that faint, unreadable smile at the corner of his mouth and spoke.
“I’m afraid that won’t do. There is someone already walking the path I intend to take — and from now on, wherever that person goes is where I go. I have somewhere I must stop by, so if you’ll excuse me.”
With those words, Leon gave one last bow and left the room without delay.
Alex sighed heavily, again and again, staring out the window. Dusk was already settling outside.
Everything had slipped from his hands. He knew it — and yet he could not account for why he felt so uneasy.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there before he lifted his head.
“Oh. I forgot to mention — there’s someone else who will be joining the expedition.”
Alex had considered sending a messenger, then changed his mind.
“I genuinely cannot tell whether he’ll be pleased or furious about it. It’s better to let him find out for himself tomorrow.”
Half an hour later. The Rüschino estate.
“Welcome, Sir Leon.”
Leon passed the butler, who bowed low, and came face to face — predictably — with an expression like an irritated bear blocking his path.
“You got my message ages ago. What took you so long?”
“…Young Count. I apologize. We’ve been swamped with expedition preparations. As you know, we depart tomorrow.”
Daryl swallowed the outburst he’d been readying. Now was not the time to be quarreling with Leon. He had more pressing concerns.
“Right. Did you read my letter?”
Leon folded his arms, his face serious.
“You’re saying Kasha has been locked in her room for four days, doing nothing but working on her magical devices?”
“That’s what I said! She leaves only to visit the smithing forge that handles device production — otherwise she hasn’t stepped a single foot outside. I tried to drag her out a few times, and now she won’t even let me in her room—”
Daryl’s complaints sharpened Leon’s expression further.
“I heard she already finished the sacred-power-based devices. What work is still left?”
Kasha had submitted a proposal — officially, not to Leon but to the Knight Commander — offering to donate the magical devices she had demonstrated at the hunting competition to the expedition, free of charge.
She had even stated that manufacturing of the devices for the expedition was already complete. When Alex had first relayed this to him, Leon had been genuinely thrown.
He thought back to the night at Elror Bay when Kasha had swapped rooms with Eve, prepared for an intruder. Just how far ahead had she been thinking? Just how much had she anticipated?
The devices that utilize sacred power have no other potential market — they can’t be commercialized, she said. So she’ll donate them for free and only asks that the Order conduct a brief study on usage results and satisfaction.
…….
But isn’t this woman your lover? How is it that you’ve heard none of this from her yourself?
Alex’s pointed question had left Leon without a word to say.
He had parted ways with Kasha immediately after the picnic outing ended. They had not discussed the expedition at all.
As for what reward to offer Lady Kasha Rüschino — we can revisit that once this matter is concluded.
The Crown Prince’s words at the tail end of the outing, and the expression on his face as he spoke them — Leon remembered them clearly.
That was why he had not contacted her, had not gone to see her. He had decided to focus entirely on returning from the expedition safely first. Only then could he truly protect her.
And yet she, undeterred by his concern — or perhaps because of it — had become officially and decisively entangled in this expedition on her own terms.
Daryl’s voice broke through his thoughts.
“The sacred-power devices were finished, but apparently she’s also making a long-range attack device. The design is done, but the prototype keeps falling short of what she wants, so she’s losing sleep over it. She’s not even eating!”
“Why would she go so far as to—”
As Leon’s expression darkened, Daryl snapped in frustration.
“You were carrying on like some lovesick fool, and now the girl’s a wreck — and you haven’t come to see her in days. You depart tomorrow, don’t you? If I hadn’t sent a messenger, were you actually planning to leave without so much as saying goodbye to Kasha?”
Leon had no answer.
His conviction that he would shield Kasha from this dangerous expedition — it had been nothing but arrogance.
She had likely thought further ahead, and prepared more thoroughly, than Leon himself — the expedition’s commanding officer.
Alone, again, carrying everything on her own.
The thought settled in Leon’s chest, and his expression turned resolute.
“So she skipped dinner tonight as well?”
Daryl saw the shift in his eyes and grumbled with poorly-disguised irritation.
“What do you think? She barely ate soup and salad for breakfast and hasn’t touched a thing since.”
“…Have a meal sent up to her room immediately. Something easy to digest.”
“Fine. And I’m warning you now — don’t you dare try anything foolish in there.”
“…I have no idea what you mean.”
Leon replied without much conviction, turned, and started up the stairs toward Kasha’s room.
Daryl bellowed after him from below.
“You’d better keep my warning in mind! Think carefully about who you’re going to encounter on this expedition!”
His steps didn’t falter — but the warning visibly tightened Leon’s jaw.
Who he would encounter on this expedition. That could only mean Count Rüschino — Kasha and Daryl’s father, the veteran guardian of the North, Malik Rüschino.
He resembled Daryl but was said to be far more taciturn — a man of the North through and through. Beyond that, Leon knew very little of the Count.
This expedition is already giving me more than enough reasons to worry, and we haven’t even set out yet.
He was still thinking as he arrived at Kasha’s door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
No response.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He knocked again and waited. Even the maid who would normally appear at the door with a cheerful greeting was nowhere to be seen tonight.
A sudden unease gripped him.
She hasn’t been eating, hasn’t been sleeping — what if she collapsed alone in there?
That thought was enough. He could not wait any longer.
“I’m coming in.”
He called out clearly, then slowly opened the door. The moment he stepped inside, the sight that greeted him struck him speechless.
“Who is it? I said don’t come in. The room’s a mess — you might get hurt.”
A thin, high voice drifted from somewhere behind a mountain of indeterminate objects.
“…….”
Without a word, Leon made his way through the chaos filling the room, moving in the direction of the voice.
Scattered across every surface were piles of wooden scraps, metal fragments, mana stones, paper, twine, and all manner of miscellaneous materials. The room had always been untidy, but this was an entirely different order of magnitude. The bed was buried under a heap of device prototypes, and the entrance to the dressing area was completely invisible.
Leon picked up design schematics from the floor one by one as he stepped forward.
At last, beyond what had once been the desk, Kasha’s slight back came into view. She had more than ten books spread open simultaneously and was digging through them with focused urgency.
“I’m sure it was in this one… Should I check Archmage Elios’s commentary on magical script first?”
She muttered to herself, then reached toward the towering stack of books on the desk. She had spotted the one she needed, wedged somewhere in the middle, and began struggling to pull it free.
Leon crossed the remaining distance without a sound.
She was still straining at the books, entirely unaware of his approach, when he silently extended an arm over her head.
His fingers touched the book she was searching for at almost the exact same moment Kasha spun around in surprise — and nearly drove her nose into his chest.
Messy hair thrown up carelessly over days without washing. Deep shadows beneath both eyes. Through her glasses, her eyes were visibly red and bloodshot.
Those eyes — the very ones he had spent these last several days desperately trying not to think of.
Meeting them in person again, Leon nearly lost his composure and pulled her into his arms.
He might have, had her pale, dry lips not opened to produce a voice — cool to the point of being cold.
“What are you doing here?”
