No way...
Ottar, the turtle, little Ottar...
What are you doing?
What in the world are you doing?
You're [King] Ottar! Orario's hero candidate, the strongest warrior in the city, the most loyal guardian (lapdog) of the Goddess of Beauty Freya!
Seriously, instead of buckling down to train hard, instead of honing your skills for your goddess, you're out here watching the gate?
Look in my eyes!
Answer me!
"?"
When that question mark surfaced in his mind, either there was something wrong with Ottar, or there was something wrong with Leon himself.
...
Clearly, the moment Leon stood before the gate, Ottar had also instantly recognized this recently-famous [Shadow of Sorcery] from Demeter Familia.
Then he looked down at his own current duty, and Ottar fell silent.
"..."
The two of them just stood there, frozen, in front of the grand gates of Folkvangr, not saying a word, staring at each other.
A gust of cold wind swept past carrying snowflakes, and the air seemed to congeal completely in that moment.
Leon: "..."
Ottar: "..."
Fortunately, this awkward standoff didn't last long.
The arrival of Hildrsleif broke the delicate silence right on time, as if recoloring the world.
Leon quickly pulled his gaze away from Ottar, and as he turned toward the cold-faced elf, he switched to a sunny smile in a single second and warmly stepped forward to greet him:
"Sir Hedin, Sir Ottar, it's been a while."
His utterly natural manner, as if that silent deadlock just now had never happened, went to show that Leon's whole "speak human to humans, speak ghost to ghosts" social technique had long been polished to perfection.
"Mm."
Hedin didn't say much, just gave a faint grunt from his nose, which counted as a grudging response.
Faced with this cold attitude, Leon couldn't care less.
After all, this guy's "elf syndrome" was even more severe than those two girls Aura and Gale, as you could gather just from his third magic, Maiden's Hymn, since who else awakened a magic whose usage condition required limiting it to those his own heart acknowledged?
And even if he hadn't, Leon wouldn't have taken it to heart at all.
Who told the guy to be his own biggest sponsor?
In light of Hedin steadily contributing thirty million Valis every month, he could accept any attitude whatsoever.
Making money isn't anything to be ashamed of.
Hedin pushed up his glasses, his gaze sweeping over the cart piled with wooden boxes beside Leon, and spoke:
"I figured you'd put it off a few days before getting the goods over here. Didn't expect you to actually be on time."
Leon spread his hands like a little bear and said with a smile:
"You're Freya Familia, after all."
Hedin and Ottar, currently on gate-duty, gave him a look, then turned and headed inside.
"Come with me. And let me warn you about one thing, the inside of Folkvangr is dangerous, don't go looking around. Those Einherjar guys all have pretty bad tempers. You know what I mean."
[Einherjar]?
Those fanatical Goddess of Beauty worshippers who did nothing useful all day, who neither went into the Dungeon to pioneer unknown floors nor maintained order in the city like Astraea and Loki's people, who just holed up in Folkvangr all day doing "Baptism"?
Leon got it instantly.
Weren't they just combat junkies?
No, they were flat-out a pack of fanatics with faith bored into their bones!
Just picturing the scene of these guys latching onto him while chanting "for the goddess," Leon felt awful all over.
He understood one principle: guys with firm faith, the kind who could even sacrifice themselves for it, were the hardest type of people to deal with.
When you ran into this type, the best way to handle them was to keep as far away as possible.
...
...
After entering Folkvangr, he soon heard waves of fierce fighting.
But he cautiously heeded Hedin's advice, keeping his eyes straight ahead the whole way, honestly pushing the cart along behind Hedin, and before long he "safely" arrived at their base warehouse.
Leon didn't notice, though, that as he passed by the training ground, several discreet gazes were fixed on him, the outsider.
You had to understand, this was the lair of Freya Familia, Folkvangr, not somewhere any stray cat or dog could just wander into. If just anything could come in, wouldn't Freya Familia be losing all their face?
And so, when a stranger abruptly appeared inside the base, right under everyone's noses, it was impossible for these fanatics who holed up at home every day not to be curious.
"Who's that?"
A blue-haired "youth" with dreadlocks elbowed his fellow flying in front of him aside, frowned, and asked the Pallum supporter serving them in a foul tone.
Following the blue-dreadlocked youth's gaze, the Pallum instantly searched his mind for relevant intel on this person.
"Lord Van, if the information I've gathered isn't wrong, his identity should be that [Shadow of Sorcery], Leon Hart, belonging to Demeter Familia."
"Uh... according to what others say, Demeter Familia's influence has surged lately, and he's one of the people responsible for it."
"[Shadow of Sorcery]? From Demeter Familia? Heh... what kind of power could some farmer have. Just an empty reputation."
Hearing Van's attitude, the others nearby silently snarked to themselves:
What kind of villain line is that! Characters who say stuff like that in hero epics always end up getting humiliated in the end!
Beside them, hearing the exchange between Van and the supporter, a girl's eyes lit up. She looked toward the direction Leon and Hedin had left in, broke off her healing magic right away, and jogged off quickly without looking back.
As for the dark elf lying on the ground, vomiting blood?
"Hey! Heith. I am about to return to the underworld, how can you treat me like this!?"
"Pfft!"
"Huh? Lord Hogni?"
"This is bad, Lord Hogni's about to die!"
"Someone, come here!"
"Andhrímnir! Where are the Andhrímnir!?"
"Somebody come save him!"
"..."
With those cries of alarm one after another, the original "Baptism" scene instantly dissolved into chaos.
...
The Folkvangr warehouse district.
The Familia member who'd been waiting there early opened the door on Hedin's order and pointed to a corner that had clearly just been cleared out:
"Put it here. The people doing the count will be along shortly."
Leon nodded and, without a word, set to hauling the boxes.
What?
What? You say the supplier shouldn't be the one moving the goods?
What kind of crap is that!?
This guy is the "number-one whale" who reliably puts out thirty million Valis every month!
You'd make the number-one whale do the heavy lifting himself?
That's just way too clueless!
Just as Leon was happily thinking about the thirty million Valis about to land in his hands, a slightly surprised woman's voice suddenly came from behind him:
"Leon? So it really is you!"
...
...
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