Book 1 Chapter 600
600.
Late at night.
“Reina? Are you really okay?”
“Yes, Deid. I’m fine, so you don’t need to worry. A hot bath will make me feel better quickly.”
Deid looked at Leo with a worried expression as Reina’s bright voice was heard from beyond the bathroom door attached to the room.
“It’s because she used mana with a body that lost its Aura. If you help her relax her body with hot water, she’ll be fine.”
Leo smiled bitterly.
“I apologize for calling you urgently in the middle of the night.”
“I’m the one who should apologize for not taking care of it when I was there with you.”
Reina, who was listening to the conversation from inside the bathroom, submerged even her mouth in the water.
‘I’ll have to restrain myself from now on.’
A chill had spread throughout her body due to the backlash from generating momentum in the Elder’s corridor earlier.
Deid had panicked and woken Leo.
Reina suddenly stroked her right chest.
The scar from when her Aura was pierced long ago was still vividly visible.
*Gurgle-gurgle-*
As she let out a small sigh, air bubbles formed.
***
*Click.*
“I knew you were overdoing it.”
Leo, who had returned to the room, let out a small sigh.
As Leo was about to get into bed, he suddenly looked at the entrance to the terrace attached to the room.
*Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-!*
Although the curtains were drawn and he couldn't see, a blizzard was raging outside.
After gazing at the terrace for a moment, Leo approached it and drew back the curtains.
*Swish-!*
Snow had piled up thickly on the terrace due to the snowfall that began at night.
Someone was kneeling right in front of the terrace door.
The woman with blue hair, seemingly unaffected by the cold, sat motionless, hands clasped, eyes closed in a devout posture.
Her appearance reminded him of the priests from the Age of Gods.
Seeing her in the guise of a devout and pious seeker, he couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped him.
‘She’s doing this again.’
Her identity was none other than Anyas, the daughter of the Northern Magic Tower Lord and the successor to the Elf Shadow Lord, a half-elf.
Leo opened the terrace door.
*Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-!*
A blizzard poured in.
“What are you doing?”
“I was offering prayers to the great god.”
“I thought I told you not to create any religions?”
“I have never created a religion.”
“Then why are you praying to me?”
“Because I joined an already established religious order.”
“What?”
Anyas handed Leo a neatly folded paper from her bosom.
Opening it, Leo felt a headache coming on.
The paper was a club promotion poster from the Lumen Academy.
<Join the Kyle Sect.>
Club Name: Kyle Sect.
Club Activities: Research into the deeds of Kyle, the Hero of Beginnings.
President: Iliana Raden.
Vice President: Chen Sia.
Treasurer: Kal Thomas.
‘These people are really something.’
During the Hero’s Festival incident, he had saved Iliana in Kyle’s form.
He also knew that she had become very interested in the Hero of Beginnings since then.
‘Right. Iliana has an eccentric side, so I can understand that, but what are these guys thinking?’
To form a club in Lumen, a minimum of three people is required.
Chen Sia must have cooperated, saying it sounded good, and Kal must have joined, thinking it might make money.
Whatever it was, they probably didn’t think too deeply about it.
How did the name get approved?
Leo pondered and quickly thought of the culprit.
‘It must be Elena, who approved it, thinking it looked interesting.’
While it claimed to be research into Kyle’s deeds, with Iliana as president, it was effectively a fan club.
“Indeed, the students of Lumen are excellent. To think of creating such a wonderful organization. Princess Sia told me there was something like this, you know?”
Anyas was busy praising Lumen until her mouth was dry.
“If this were a wonderful thing, the world would have long since ended. And I’m not Kyle. So why are you praying to me?”
“Lord Leo is the successor to the Hero of Beginnings, acknowledged by God! As such, Lord Leo is included among those the Kyle Sect should worship!”
“You’re not even a Lumen student, to begin with.”
“What does status have to do with faith?”
‘It’s no use talking to her.’
Leo clicked his tongue, looking at Anyas, whose eyes had already glazed over.
Since entering Lumen Academy.
Leo had seen many people draw strength by shouting the names of the great heroes.
‘Among us, only Luna would like such an embarrassing thing.’
Excluding Luna, who used to boast about being worshipped for generations, no one among the great heroes liked being glorified like that.
Arion would probably have shrieked in embarrassment if he had seen it.
‘I'd rather not see such a mortifying sight.’
Leo sighed and said.
‘I’m already having enough trouble because of that guy Lyan.’
Leo shook his head, thinking of the fanatics busy praising him, and said,
“Just come inside for now.”
“Ah! How could I be in the same space as Lord Leo!”
“Then you want me to keep standing here getting hit by the blizzard?”
“H-H-Huh! I, I was committing such rudeness! I didn’t know!”
Seeing Anyas bowing to him, Leo said with a resigned attitude.
“It’s fine, just come in.”
“Ah, I don’t know what to do about Lord Leo’s merciful forgiveness. But I received such easy forgiveness compared to the sin I committed! I cannot accept it! Therefore, instead of Lord Leo, I will punish myself!”
Anyas, whose eyes had rolled back, took off her robe.
Under the thick robe was a thin white dress.
Anyas pulled out a short whip from inside her robe, gripped it, took a stance, and was about to strike her own back.
Leo snatched the whip away and thought.
‘Once the school opens, I must disband that cursed club immediately.’
***
“I don’t know what all this commotion is about at dawn.”
*Click-click-*
Elsie, who had brought the tea, said with a troubled smile.
“Haa… Haa… Look at this whip. Doesn’t it look excellent? If I get hit by this by my master…”
In the corner, Arti was rubbing her cheek against the whip Leo had confiscated.
Seeing this, Leo made a serious expression.
“Why are you making such a serious face?”
When Kyrran asked with a puzzled look, Leo said,
“I’m wondering why there are always so many strange things around me.”
It was the same in his previous life and his current life.
Somehow, only strange things gather around him.
“It’s because Leo is strange.”
*Cheep. Cheep.*
Fiora, in the form of a phoenix, flapped her wings in agreement with Kyrran’s words.
They seemed to get along remarkably well.
Leo looked at the two fantastical beasts with a pathetic expression.
‘They don’t seem to think that they themselves are included in those strange things.’
The Fairy Princess, who was banished after her powers were sealed due to mischief.
Fiora, who once became an obese phoenix, making chick sounds.
It goes without saying that these two are also far from normal.
‘Even in my previous life, my comrades were a con artist lizard, a bad-tempered elf, a perverted dwarf, and a cowardly beastman.’
Leo clicked his tongue, recalling his comrades.
‘I guess it’s my fate.’
Leo shook his head and said,
“So, what brings you here?”
Anyas had not been officially invited as a guest of Zerdinger but had secretly come to meet Leo.
And this place, the heart of Zerdinger, was where countless excellent knights resided.
Even for the successor to the Shadow Lord, infiltrating secretly was difficult.
Coming here risking such danger meant she had something important to discuss with Leo.
In response to Leo’s question, Anyas raised her teacup, moistened her lips, and said,
“I have come to report to Lord Leo what I have found regarding the Hero Dungeon rampage incident that occurred during this Hero’s Festival.”
“That was quick.”
“Because I immediately took custody of the culprit.”
The incident during the Hero’s Festival when Lumen’s Hero Record went berserk in the middle of Lumen Academy.
As a result of its aftermath, a tremendous catastrophe, the emergence of Erebus’s flame, occurred in the heart of Lumen.
‘Lyan said that the Lumen page that went berserk then couldn’t be used by Erebus as an exit, right?’
A page that Erebus could not possess and thus could not use as an entrance.
Unless someone secretly brought it in, it was impossible for a Lumen page to be inside Lumen Academy.
‘There’s only one type of individual who would target the Hero’s Festival, which has frequent external visitors, to do such a thing.’
Tartarus.
And Leo believed that there were individuals among those invited to the Hero’s Festival who were connected to Tartarus, so he ordered Mel to pursue the person who brought the Lumen page.
No matter how skilled the culprit was, there was no escape if the pursuer was a Dragon Lord.
And Mel caught the culprit and brought him before Leo.
He was royalty from a small kingdom located in the Northern Continent.
‘What should I do?’
‘Send him to the Northern Magic Tower Lord. The culprit is probably not directly connected to Tartarus.’
Just as the Elf Pureblood Society had a connection to Tartarus.
It was obvious that humans of high status were also connected to Tartarus.
For Leo, who had delved into the shadows since the Age of Disaster, interrogating people was effortless.
‘But the information that can be obtained from interrogating one person is limited.’
It is much more efficient to pursue forces connected to the Elf Shadow Lord, who controls the underworld of the Northern Continent.
“So? Did you find the connected forces?”
“I was unable to identify the connected forces. However, I succeeded in finding out who gave Lord Lumen’s page to the culprit.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s the Hero Slayer.”
Leo paused at Anyas’s words.
Hero Slayer.
The traitor who killed countless heroes 500 years ago.
He was a being like the incarnation of evil that plunged the world into fear.
“Now that you mention it, you said you found traces of the Hero Slayer contacting the Elf Pureblood Society some time ago and were chasing him, right?”
At the time, it was a question that a figure who had disappeared 500 years ago had reappeared, but now the question was resolved.
It is an era where even heroes are resurrected as undead by the power of the Lich King.
It is not surprising that the traitor who once plunged the world into fear is resurrected as an undead.
“How did you find out he was connected to that kingdom?”
“The bodies of heroes who had been missing for decades were found in the palace’s underground.”
Anyas’s eyes grew cold.
“All of them were victims of the Hero Slayer.”
“Then does that mean this Hero Slayer has been active not recently, but for decades?”
“It seems so.”
Hearing Anyas’s answer, Leo stroked his chin.
“But how did you find out they were victims of the Hero Slayer?”
He suddenly felt curious.
It is not easy to identify the actions of a villain from 500 years ago just by looking at a corpse.
In response to Leo’s question, Anyas pointed to her right chest with her finger.
“The Hero Slayer plunges his finger into the right chest of the heroes he murders.”
“He’s a madman with unique tastes.”
“He’s not just a madman. There’s a reason he does it.”
“A reason?”
“Yes. The power to steal others’ abilities. That is the Hero Slayer’s ability.”