Chapter 97: Lakyus's Worry
"Regarding the Six Arms security stronghold." Lucian's gaze came to rest on the map, and he tapped the relevant mark lightly with one finger. "You can reduce the forces assigned there."
Lakyus's brow moved slightly.
Six Arms. The name carried a weight in the underground world that made most adventurers think twice before getting anywhere near it. As Eight Fingers' elite combat unit, the most formidable killers in the capital's criminal underworld, they had been the single heaviest entry in Blue Roses' original deployment plan — the part everyone had quietly prepared for a brutal fight.
"Why?" Gagaran was the first to speak, her voice a half-note lower than usual.
Her thick arms came out of their folded position. Those predator's eyes on her square face narrowed slightly. "What happened on the Six Arms end?"
Lucian lifted his gaze and looked around the table.
"Did some work last night."
His tone was flat, the way someone discusses something unremarkable.
"Six Arms has been fully neutralized."
A beat of silence. Then Blue Roses gave him their collective surprise.
Tina and Tia exchanged a glance, and in each other's wine-red eyes found the exact same shock they were each carrying.
Something unexpected crossed Gagaran's blunt face. Even Evileye, who had been sitting in silence throughout, had a moment where the gaze behind that narrow mask slit went absolutely still.
But Lakyus's response was less surprise than anger.
"What?"
She stood up from her chair in one motion, both hands coming down flat on the table. The hem of her pale rose-colored dress swayed with the movement.
In those pale green eyes burned the kind of fury that only shows up when worry has reached its absolute limit.
"Brother, you went and took out Six Arms last night?"
Her hands hit the table again, expressing what words weren't quite managing.
"How could you do that — that was far too dangerous."
Before Lucian could say a single word in response, a warm light had already risen around him.
Tier 3 Faith-Based Magic — [Major Heal].
The warm current of magical energy moved over Lucian from head to foot, searching for any wound it could close.
Lucian stood still, caught off guard.
He watched Lakyus in front of him — her fingers still trembling slightly as she held the casting posture.
She was already the captain of an Adamantite-ranked team. She could hold her composure through almost anything.
But at this particular moment, the Lakyus who was barely holding herself together looked like she had stepped back in time to when they were children.
Something moved in Lucian.
"Take a breath, Lakyus. I'm not hurt anywhere." His voice came out very quiet, the tone he used to calm a cat whose fur had puffed up in alarm.
"Ghost Boss, your brother doesn't have any injuries." Tina added from the side, her gaze making a careful pass over Lucian's body. With the eyesight of a ninja-thief class, she confirmed that none of the skin showing above his armor showed so much as a scratch.
"Captain, there isn't even a tear in his clothing." Evileye's composed voice came from behind the mask. The gaze through that narrow slit rested on Lucian for a moment and reached the same conclusion.
Lakyus finally let the tension go.
She dropped the casting posture, walked around the table to Lucian, and looked him over carefully. Armor intact. Clothing clean. Not a trace of fatigue on his face.
No injuries. Confirmed.
She let out a quiet breath. Then, almost immediately, the anger came back to that precise face.
"How could brother just act on his own like that — and completely alone."
Lakyus stood in front of him with her cheeks puffed in indignation, for all the world like an offended pufferfish, both hands planted on her hips, those pale green eyes full of reproach.
Lucian looked at her like this and had to suppress the urge to laugh.
Last time she had been this angry had to have been when they were children.
"It actually wasn't that dangerous." He opened his mouth, keeping his voice deliberately easy. "I came fully prepared—"
"Prepared how!" Lakyus cut right through it, her voice climbing another pitch. "Six Arms is the most formidable killer organization in the capital's underground world. Brother going alone — if something had happened, I..."
Her sentence ran halfway out and stopped.
Something had lodged in her throat, and the rest of the words refused to come.
Lucian looked at the faint red tinge at the corners of her eyes. Something quiet got touched in him.
He actually wanted to explain that he had been perfectly safe.
But before he could open his mouth, Gagaran had already taken the conversation somewhere else entirely.
"Lolicon. Took out all of Six Arms alone. Not bad at all."
Something genuinely complimentary had entered her blunt voice, even if it was wearing Gagaran's usual expression of unstated menace.
She paused, and that gravelly voice came back.
"I've crossed swords with some of those people before. Not the whole group, but every one of them was a serious problem. Finishing all of them in a single night — I want you even more now."
Beside her, Evileye — who never spoke unless she had to — gave a small nod of agreement.
The mask concealed her expression, but the nod said what it needed to.
"Mm, Ghost Bro didn't take a single injury," Tia added, her voice almost identical to Tina's but carrying a flatter tone. "Feels like he's even stronger than Ghost Boss."
Lakyus heard this and took her hands off her hips.
Tia was complimenting Lucian by standing on Lakyus's combat record to do it, and Lakyus didn't have a single objection to any of it.
Quite the opposite — the anger on her face dispersed as though a wind had taken it, replaced by the expression of someone who has been personally praised rather than praised for someone else. She was happier about it than she would have been hearing a compliment about herself.
The corner of her mouth curved upward. The edges of her eyes curved to match.
She was nodding slightly.
As though to say: obviously.
Lucian watched his sister and felt an equal measure of helplessness and amusement.
Come on, your own teammate just called me better than you, and you're this pleased about it?
He genuinely could not follow Lakyus's reasoning.
*
The room was a little brighter than before.
Morning light had pushed through the gaps in the curtain and drawn a thin gold line across the floorboards. Fine dust drifted in that light in a slow, weightless current, stirred by something invisible.
Lakyus was still standing there, the curve at the corner of her mouth refusing to settle.
Those pale green eyes were full of a pride that had spread to the rest of her, as though she'd been lit up from the inside.
Lucian watched his sister like this.
And he thought, suddenly, of something from a long time ago.
In that dark alley, Lakyus had stood before him the same way, looking up at him with those bright eyes, and said: onii-chan is amazing.
Then, he had just killed Baron Livian. His hands had been covered in blood.
Now, he had just helped Sebas wipe out Six Arms. His hands were clean.
Thirteen years had passed.
Some things hadn't changed at all.
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