Orario, the Loki Familia headquarters, the Twilight Manor.
Leon had come here keeping a low profile.
This was, after all, the home turf of the Loki Familia. Even setting aside the fact that they ranked among the top powers as one of Orario's twin pillars, just considering the reputation and contributions they'd built up in Orario, he had no desire to come across as too brazen.
Upstaging your host, showing up to flex and humiliate people and the like, that was the kind of thing only someone with low social tact would do.
But plans never keep up with how things actually go.
He'd barely pushed his flatbed cart through the gate, barely poked his head in, when a certain Sword Princess practicing her swordwork in the front courtyard garden caught him red-handed!
None other than Miss Ais Wallenstein.
The girl had just been through a crisis of conviction. The abnormal growth speed that Leon's group had shown threw her into a whirlpool of self-doubt, and she'd spent her days numbing that fiercely burning heart of vengeance with training so crazed it nearly wrung her dry.
It had taken Riveria's patient counseling to finally settle her down for the time being, keeping her at headquarters to rest and recover.
And now look how it turned out... of all times and all places, Leon had to show up precisely in front of the one person he should never have run into.
This was basically Ais getting an ult dropped right in her face.
How could she stand for that?
Long-suppressed emotions erupted like a volcano, and with her eyes blazing red, Ais challenged Leon without a moment's hesitation.
"Leon917! I want to duel you!"
She didn't even wait for Leon to respond, sending him a match request without another word!
"?"
...
...
The invincible Sword Princess had fallen.
Ais lay sprawled on the ground, eyes rolled back, a big footprint stamped across her delicate little face, and almost in an instant that once exquisite face swelled up red before everyone's eyes.
This sudden scene left the Familia members passing by all dumbstruck, every one of them frozen in place as if hit with a binding spell.
By the time they came to their senses and realized their beloved little princess had been beaten to the ground by an "outsider," screams erupted from the crowd one after another:
"Oh gods!"
"Aaaaaaaah!"
"This is bad!"
"Ais, Ais just got beaten by a stranger!"
"Somebody!"
"Where's a healer?"
"Is Ais... is she going to be okay?!"
"Ais is dead!"
"Go fetch Lord Finn, quick!"
Leon stood alone in the center of the front courtyard, his face dark, the corner of his mouth twitching. In the blink of an eye, he was surrounded on all sides by a group of wary-looking Loki Familia members. Faced with that hair-trigger standoff, all he felt was a wave of exasperation.
"Come on, I just came to drop off a delivery, is all this really necessary!"
To be honest, Leon couldn't help suspecting... was the Loki Familia cursed with something or other? Everyone else's Familias, his own included, got to live their days peacefully and quietly, warm, ordinary, full of joy.
But here at the Loki Familia, every couple of days they had to stir up some kind of drama. Even the Freya Familia didn't have this much messy nonsense going on.
If there wasn't something dirty going on under the surface, he refused to believe it!
"Mmgh... aah!"
Just as the situation was about to spiral out of control, with a few hot-headed male Adventurers even shouting that they'd take action to avenge their little princess, they looked up and saw the giant fireball over five meters across hanging above Leon's head.
In an instant, it was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on them, and everyone went quiet. Watching those show-offs whose eyes had suddenly gone clear, Leon curled his lip in disdain.
That's it? Every one of them already Lv. 2, and still this brainless. Looks like the Loki Familia isn't all elites...
These guys probably have a bit of talent, and on top of that, with Finn expanding recruitment to deal with the Evilus targeting them, that's how this lot got the chance to join the Loki Familia. Heh... in six, seven years, no... even three years from now, with temperaments like theirs, there's no way they'd ever make the cut.
"Leon!"
At that critical moment... Ais's "guardian" Riveria finally hurried over just in time, getting the nearly out-of-control scene under control.
Glancing at the giant fireball hovering overhead, radiating high heat without pause, Riveria spoke to the surrounding Familia members with a stern expression:
"Everyone, disperse."
Her voice was steady and commanding:
"This is one of our partners, the Shadow of Sorcery from the Demeter Familia. Some of you who joined the Expedition should recognize him."
Hearing the vice-captain herself speak up, the crowd finally eased up on their guard, and the encirclement gradually broke apart.
She then glanced at the two youngsters who had just come running out of the main hall and waved them over:
"Aki, Raul. You two, come here and take Ais to the treatment room."
"Eh? Miss Ais?"
Looking at Ais with her eyes rolled back, the two were equally stunned, their scalps prickling.
Then they looked at Leon standing there with that fireball baking like a second sun overhead, and even though they had no idea what had happened.
"Yes, Lady Riveria!"
After arranging for the two of them to take Ais off for treatment, Riveria gave Leon a meaningful look:
"Leon, come with me."
With that, she led Leon winding left and right, through a stretch of barren garden, to a stone pavilion in the middle, where she invited him to sit down.
Looking at Leon's expressionless face, Riveria let out a helpless little sigh, her tone carrying sincere apology:
"I'm sorry, Leon."
"You know how it is, Ais has always been this impulsive a child... causing you this much trouble, I really feel terrible about it."
At that, Leon raised an eyebrow.
"It's nothing. Ais is at the age where everyone finds you insufferable anyway, I can understand that."
His tone was flat, giving nothing away of his mood:
"Besides, I'm not some monster. Given the relationship between our two sides, a little thing like this isn't enough to drive a wedge between us."
Riveria: "..."
No wedge driven between them?
Then how was she supposed to explain Ais lying beaten on the ground with her eyes rolling back? Could it be that... this was actually a "personal grudge"?
Come to think of it, now that she considered it...
She sucked in a quiet breath through her teeth.
She pushed that suspicion down for now and cut to the main point:
"So what brings you here this time?"
Seeing him steer toward the topic on his own, Leon dropped his teasing expression to match and tipped his chin toward the flatbed cart outside the pavilion:
"Those few crates are the Monster Hunter Special you ordered. You can send someone to count them."
"This month's batch is finally here!"
A trace of delight crossed Riveria's eyes, and she immediately waved over the two elven guards standing watch a short distance away.
"Count the crates, and also, go ask Finn to come over for a moment."
"As you command, Lady Riveria!"
Leon stood quietly off to the side, watching the scene, a pang of envy stirring in his chest:
Damn it, the elven royal line really is something. One wave of the hand and she's got a pack of underlings running back and forth for her, and yet she's the one who doesn't even like it...
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