Book 1 Chapter 686
686.
“Oh? It’s Leo? What brings you here? Did you come here on the way after meeting Lord Dweno?”
Kal wore a welcoming expression.
In front of Kal, dwarf and beastkin children were standing in line.
The children were receiving one candy each from Kal.
“Wow!”
“Thank you!”
The children who received candies put them in their mouths and made happy expressions.
Ar was pulling a cart carrying the children.
Driana was fixing the children’s toys in the middle of the spacious yard, and Iliana was crawling on the floor like a horse, carrying one child at a time on her back and moving around.
‘An orphanage, huh.’
“Lord Dweno!”
“Wow! It’s Lord Dweno!”
The children spotted Dweno next to Leo and rushed over.
“Welcome back, Lord Dweno!”
“How have you all been?”
Dweno smiled, stroked each child’s head, and then asked,
“Where’s Enniha?”
“She’s inside.”
“She must be drawing.”
The orphanage children gathered around Leo, looking at him with curious expressions.
“Wow, is big brother human too?”
At that, Leo just nodded his head without a word.
At his somewhat cold demeanor, the children flinched and hid behind Dweno.
“It seems that personality won’t change even after death. Would it hurt to be kind to the children like those friends?”
“Ar unnie! Faster! Faster!”
“Sister! You can do it!”
“Woooaah!”
Ar, pulling the cart, accelerated further.
“Hee-yah! Hee-yah!”
“Hey. Your unnie is tired, can’t we rest now?”
“No way!”
A dwarf girl on Iliana’s back shook her head.
“Ah! Leader!”
Iliana crawled over to Leo and tugged at his pants leg.
“Switch with me! My back is going to give out!”
“Your back isn’t so weak that it’d go out that easily. Playing with children is a hero’s work, so hang in there. Or? Do you want to continue training?”
At that, Iliana’s face turned pale, and she let the child off her back and shouted,
“Next!”
Ar and Iliana, who had become popular toys, played happily with the children.
“This is why people need skills.”
“Exactly. Otherwise, your body will suffer.”
Driana and Kal chuckled as they watched.
“Detestable.”
“What now?”
“Since when have you been emphasizing heroism so much?”
At Dweno’s words, Leo shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know about the inside, but shouldn’t the outside at least look the part?”
“Tsk. You’ve taken after something bad. Is there nothing else to resemble but Lisinas’s fraudulent tendencies?”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“Even Luna’s brazenness. You learn all the bad things.”
Dweno wore a look of exasperation.
“They say married couples resemble each other, but weren’t you not even in such a relationship with those two?”
At that, Leo turned his gaze forward.
What should he say?
Should he say that he had already met Luna and Lisinas and knew their feelings?
And on top of that, Lisinas even tried to scam him into marriage?
Saying such things, Dweno’s reaction would be obvious.
‘As expected, you’re an idiot.’
There was no need to get cursed at unnecessarily.
While he was thinking that, Dweno approached the orphanage children and said,
“You must be tired, so go rest at the mansion.”
At that, Leo nodded and opened the mansion door.
Creak-
Just before stepping into the mansion.
He looked back one last time at Dweno, who was laughing and playing with the children.
Back when they were in Guardsron.
Lisinas, Luna, and Aron often took care of the orphanage children.
Lisinas, who never doubted that those children were the future.
Luna, who simply enjoyed playing with the children.
Aron, who simply liked children.
Their reasons were all different.
But all three treated the children with sincerity.
‘Those little ones also followed those three well.’
But he and Dweno always kept their distance from the children.
Leo in his previous life didn’t particularly like children.
‘Not that I like them now, either.’
Leo didn’t get close to children.
The only children who approached him were Berkia and Vihar.
‘Well, I always had a grumpy expression, so.’
It was understandable that they didn’t approach him out of fear.
But Dweno was different.
He always looked at the children with a benevolent smile.
Dweno himself didn’t dislike children.
But he always kept his distance from them.
He maintained a certain boundary with the orphanage children.
He had never found that particularly strange.
‘The others were the same.’
He just thought that he didn’t dislike children, but also didn’t like them enough to dote on them.
But looking at him now, that wasn’t the case.
‘I don’t know Dweno’s past.’
They could trust each other more than anyone.
He would entrust his life to Dweno without hesitation.
Even if Dweno were to betray his trust.
There would be no regrets.
Such was the bond between great heroes.
“Lord Dweno! I drew a flower picture!”
“Haha! You drew it better than Enniha.”
“I don’t think so.”
Dweno burst out laughing, looking at the flower drawing shown by the beastkin girl.
A dwarf boy, who was sitting opposite drawing, said,
“But how pretty are real flowers?”
“Very pretty.”
“I heard vast flower fields are as beautiful as the stars in the night sky!”
Dweno smiled faintly, looking at the sparkling children.
In the Age of Disaster, flowers were an almost extinct plant.
This place was also Tartaros’s domain, so flowers were hard to find.
For these children, flowers were only something they had seen in drawings.
‘They were rarer than magic stones even in Guardsron.’
Dweno closed his eyes with a bitter expression.
‘Until some fool completed an utterly absurd magic.’
Clap-!
The sound of fingers snapping was heard.
“Waaaaaah!”
“It’s pretty!”
The excited cheers of the children were heard.
When he opened his eyes, his vision was captivated by profusely blooming flowers.
Dweno instinctively turned around.
There stood Leo, with his characteristic emotionless eyes and a bored expression.
And with a somehow annoyed face, he went into the room.
“Seriously.”
Dweno let out a hollow laugh.
‘There are times when I understand why those fools fell for that idiot.’
***
“Aaaargh! This isn’t it!”
Leo, who had entered the mansion and was lying on the living room sofa, got up from his seat at a scream from the second floor.
He then scratched his head vigorously and went up to the second floor.
Upon reaching the second floor, he felt a presence from the room at the very end.
When he opened the door and entered, he saw Enniha’s back, drawing with a haggard face in a small room with sunlight blocked by curtains.
On the canvas in front of Enniha, a flower painting was drawn.
“What are you doing?”
“Huh? When did you get here?”
Enniha turned around, scratching her greasy hair, and said,
“Nothing much. I want to show the children flowers, but it’s not working out. It’s been ages since I last saw flowers too.”
The painting on the canvas was a sufficiently well-drawn picture.
But it was a flower that lacked vitality.
Besides that, the other paintings hanging around the room were full of flower and sunrise paintings.
“Do you like flowers?”
“Not really.”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen an elf who doesn’t like flowers.”
Elves, who pursue harmony with nature, like flowers.
Because it is natural beauty, not artificial beauty.
“Hmph. I just like the sun the most.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s pretty.”
Leo smirked at Enniha, who gave an extremely simple reason, and drew back the curtain.
“Then focus on drawing the sun. The flowers have already bloomed.”
“What?”
Enniha’s eyes widened as she looked out the window.
“What? What? What flowers are these?”
A profusely blooming flower field.
Enniha was surprised to see the children playing in it.
“It’s magic.”
“Magic? It’s not illusion magic, is it?”
“It’s magic that makes flowers bloom.”
“There’s such magic?”
“It’s magic created by some foolish elf.”
It was magic that would be born in the distant past for Leo, and in the not-so-distant future for Enniha.
“Hah~ If I had known this, I would have learned magic, wouldn’t I?”
Enniha, who was admiring, looked at Leo.
“Is it magic you used?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s amazing.”
Enniha, admiring, said,
“I’m glad we… specifically, I’m glad I could meet you.”
“Suddenly?”
As Leo made a bewildered expression, Enniha gave a bitter smile.
“Yes. I’m grateful. Thanks to you, I felt that Dweno finally gained a comrade.”
“A comrade, huh.”
Leo, with his arms crossed, leaned against the window and looked at Dweno outside, saying,
“Are you saying you’re not Dweno’s comrade?”
“Before being a comrade, I’m a burden.”
Enniha gave a self-deprecating smile.
“It’s not just me. Ibaldi is nothing but a burden to Dweno.”
Enniha continued speaking as she washed her brush in a water pot.
“You know, too. Dweno’s overwhelming strength.”
He knew better than anyone.
Because Dweno was the great hero who saved the world with him.
An iron-like will that seemed like it would never waver or crumble.
Even Lisinas, who was terrified and said he couldn't join the party when he first saw Dweno, and Luna, who often bickered.
Even Aron, who was always scared and needed someone to rely on.
‘Even myself.’
When they wavered.
Or when they crumbled.
He hammered them with that iron-like will, instilling a stronger resolve and straightening out their crumpled parts.
Dweno was not just a smith who made the weapons they used.
He was the hammer that made them sharper and harder.
‘The past doesn’t matter.’
Because he didn’t want to reveal it himself.
However.
Facing Dweno’s past like this, he felt pathetic for having merely relied on him.
Enniha said,
“He always couldn’t fight properly to protect us. We always held Dweno back.”
“Did Dweno say that?”
“No. He never said that, but…”
Enniha shook her head.
“Being with you, who possesses equal strength, Dweno definitely unleashed all his power.”
Enniha clenched her fist.
“He might say he isn’t, but Dweno clearly has the power to save this world. Everyone in Ibaldi and I believe that.”
“So you’re glad to have met me?”
“Yes.”
Leo chuckled.
“You are not Dweno’s burden.”
“What?”
“The people of Ibaldi are the same.”
One could easily tell how profoundly this elf influenced the life of that damned self-proclaimed perverted artist, without having to think deeply.
The driving force of that iron-like will that sustained them, that never wavered, was right before his eyes.
Enniha’s.
He had carried the hopes of the people of Ibaldi and moved forward without faltering.
‘Just as I did.’
In the final moments.
They must have believed in Dweno even until the moment they closed their eyes.
‘Just as you did.’
“Just as you believe in Dweno. Dweno will also believe in you. So don’t talk about being a burden or anything like that.”
Leo looked at Enniha.
“Dweno will answer your faith.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because that guy is going to save the world.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because I know the future.”
“What?”
Enniha’s eyes widened.
Enniha, who had been looking at Leo with a bewildered face, then marveled.
“Wow, I almost really fell for it.”
“It’s true, though.”
“Amazing. You would have been an incredible con artist if it were a peaceful era. Where did you learn such things?”
Watching the admiring Enniha, Leo looked at Dweno outside the window with a serious expression.
‘Am I really becoming like that con artist lizard, as that guy said?’
***
Boom-! Boom-!
The ground shakes with every step.
Just by existing, surrounding living beings die.
Giant King Gias laughed as he looked at the runaway world unfolding before his eyes.
“I will make you regret coming to my world, surviving hero.”