NOVEL NEXT Chapter 297:
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The sun was short in midwinter.
The setting sun that descended through the narrow entrance of the canyon seeped into the tent, turning Leciel’s red hair golden.
It was a scene reminiscent of a memory from a distant past on some coast.
Leciel called him again with a quiet but firm voice.
“Professor.”
…The hero realized that denying further was meaningless.
Leciel would be sure of his identity no matter how much he denied it.
Lying again here would only be unnecessary deception and would deepen the wounds.
The hero’s mouth opened.
“…Yes.”
The awaited answer came.
Leciel’s gaze wavered momentarily; she was swept up in a whirlwind of complex emotions.
A slightly staggering body.
She was so tense, fearing that the hero might escape.
The hero unconsciously tried to support her… but withdrew his outstretched hand.
“…….”
Facing Leciel after a long time,
The hero had no choice but to admit that he had overestimated himself.
Even though he had known and prepared for this moment,
Facing Leciel’s wounds right before him, it felt like he was back to his naive old self.
Even his once confident tongue was now frozen.
The deep, well-like gaze stared at him.
The Leciel’s eyes, he remembered, were not like this.
“…….”
Meanwhile, Leciel could not easily open her mouth either.
‘You have to speak well.’
The thoughts she had been suppressing,
They were chipped away and diminished when she tried to speak them out.
In a slightly unexpected form.
‘I want to convey my thoughts and feelings accurately.’
Throwing out the past three years recklessly like a child was something she hated more than death.
So, even though it was the moment she had longed for so much, she had no choice but to shut her mouth.
In the strange silence between the master and disciple,
Flap-
An uninvited guest suddenly entered the hero’s tent with a cheerful voice.
“Hey, Ignotus. Are you busy?”
Looking back,
Arpheus was holding an expensive-looking bottle of wine.
Ah, yes.
Today must have been a harsh day for him as well.
Dragged into a meeting discussing humanity’s survival before fully recovering from yesterday’s battle fatigue, he was tense all day.
He probably wanted to relax and seek advice from Ignotus, whom he had become quite close to.
But the timing was terrible.
Arpheus, smiling and taking out cheese-like snacks, froze upon noticing the visitor.
“Oh, um.”
Sensing the tense atmosphere,
He lowered his voice slightly while observing Leciel’s expression.
“…Would you like to join us?”
“Leave.”
“Okay.”
Without looking back, Arpheus disappeared.
“…….”
“…….”
…If his lack of tact had helped in any way, it was that the terribly stiff atmosphere had slightly eased.
Leciel let out a light sigh and opened her mouth.
“Do you have anything you want to say?”
At that moment, a voice whispered in the hero’s head.
[Stop hesitating and replicate it completely]
It suggested that finding soothing words would be much easier if he completely replicated the essence now.
‘Nonsense.’
The hero instinctively shook his head.
Although it wasn’t a rejection of her, Leciel nodded as if she understood.
“Then I’ll start.”
“…….”
“I have a lot to say.”
Once she started speaking, it felt easier.
Yes, now she would say it all.
Everything honestly.
What the hero meant to her.
How harsh the past three years had been.
And what she would do now.
…The preamble is like this.
This would be the best start.
“I missed you.”
* * *
‘I can’t just hate him completely.’
A year after the hero disappeared.
Leciel suddenly realized this fact while lying on a sickbed.
It was right after she sustained an injury that required her to be bedridden for at least a month due to carrying out a mission recklessly.
Now, her superior, Felson, spoke with a frightening expression that was too terrifying to be shown to his son’s friend.
“If you act recklessly on the battlefield again, you will be permanently expelled from the knighthood.”
“Yes.”
“The same goes for returning early while hiding an unrecovered state.”
“...Yes.”
“Recover completely before returning.”
A leave of absence she had to take.
It was the first time since leaving Rosenstark that she put down her sword.
In the tedious hospital ward, Leciel suddenly decided to reflect on this situation from the beginning.
Starting with this question:
‘Why do I like the professor so much?’
There were many immediate reasons.
Thanks to the hero, she reconciled with her grandmother.
Her skills improved significantly due to his devoted teachings.
She gained precious friends.
She accumulated countless joyous memories she wouldn’t have dared to dream of alone.
‘I couldn’t help but like him.’
…But even so, should his absence be this painful?
The past year felt like ten without exaggeration.
Every day was too long and tedious.
Throwing herself into the madness of the battlefield to clear her mind was only a temporary solution.
Whenever she had a moment, her thoughts always became complicated with the thoughts of the hero.
His words and actions constantly replayed and were reinterpreted in her mind.
Leciel found it unbearably frustrating.
‘The others seemed fine long ago. Why am I the only one like this?’
Of course, Leciel knew that her feelings for the hero differed from those of her friends.
Even before coming to the academy, the hero was her every goal and dream.
‘...But this is too much.’
When she regained her senses after swinging her sword, she would think, ‘Will the professor be satisfied with my skills when he returns?’
She was always eager for her achievements to reach his ears.
When she saw an unfamiliar face at the garrison, she would follow them, thinking, ‘Just in case.’
She spent every day in such torment.
‘I’m crazy.’
Even though she resented and felt betrayed by him for deceiving her, all her actions still revolved around him.
The reason she was lying on the sickbed now was that she had overexerted herself, thinking he might visit if she collapsed.
If Felson knew, he would expel her immediately.
…Or maybe he already knew.
Leciel clenched her teeth.
‘This is not right.’
Fortunately,
Leciel had someone to consult about these symptoms.
She provided a clear answer.
[You thought you found the meaning of life, but it was suddenly taken away.]
“What?”
Yussi Glendor explained to her junior with dry eyes.
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She had a similar experience.
When she retired after losing her limbs and left the hero’s side.
All daily life lost its meaning.
The only things that truly mattered were those related to the hero.
Leciel retorted in confusion.
“Isn’t that too pathetic? Why…."
[Both you and I didn’t have very happy childhoods.]
Yussi suffered severe abuse from her family.
Similarly, Leciel, who also had emotional deficiencies, buried herself in swordsmanship.
Coincidentally, they had something in common.
[What were you thinking while barely enduring those horrible times?]
“I….”
[It’s obvious. You were looking for a reason to endure those times. I wanted to get rich through alchemy and take revenge on my family, and you wanted to defeat the hero with your swordsmanship and gain your grandmother’s recognition. Futile and trivial life goals… we were in the same context.]
"……."
[But, if we had achieved those goals, would we have been happy?]
Leciel was silent, feeling as if Yussi was peering into her soul.
[Then, we met someone who presented us with lofty, glittering goals like justice, salvation, and public welfare.]
[Moreover, that person wasn’t just a slick-talking charlatan but an righteous, virtuous, honest, and noble person.]
[How could twisted people like us not be captivated?]
…And realizing that such a great person needed them to achieve such precious goals.
[How did you feel when you realized that?]
Leciel suddenly recalled something the hero had said.
“I need you.”
“Those who will stand by my side and witness the end of the demons.”
“I….”
[You must have felt like you finally escaped an endless maze.]
Yes, there was nothing wrong with Yussi’s words.
‘That’s right.’
Learning the sword from the hero, receiving his praise, and spending time together felt like,
Being one of the subjects in a masterpiece painted by a great artist.
Part of a noble plan.
A guarantee that her life was never meaningless.
‘As long as I could be with him until the end, anything was fine.’
But the hero left without any warning.
After leaving, he never once looked for her.
She thought she was part of the picture he was drawing and dreaming of… but in reality, she was just a dried-up paint smudge in the corner of the palette.
[If you think of yourself as a stray dog that has lost its master, it’s easy to understand. A puppy reminiscing about the old days while suffering from cold, hunger, and thirst. It’s easy to understand, isn’t it?]
…At the time, Yussi was not in her right mind after hearing of Ted’s death, and thus, she was more brutally candid and cynical than usual.
But Leciel couldn’t refute any of her words.
“......”
She understood the cause of her problems.
But, of course, the situation didn’t dramatically change.
Leciel was still distressed, bored, and sometimes resentful.
She lived as if the unseen hero was watching her.
...On one of those days when even that waiting started to dull,
He suddenly appeared again.
“I will ascend as the captain of Avalon. So follow me without question.”
Leciel, who usually struggled to read others’ emotions, could clearly understand why the hero acted like a ‘terrifying presence’ in the meeting.
Like the day the preliminary briefing was held.
Like the past year.
The hero needed the extreme children; he needed her.
...She hadn’t forgotten.
‘That’s enough.’
What he had been doing all this time.
Why he hadn’t come to see her?
What was he thinking when he lied?
If she could hear a few explanations, that would be perfect, but for now, this was enough.
“...So that’s how it was.”
Leciel concluded her explanation of the past three years.
“......”
The hero, who had been silently listening, just stared at her...
Unexpectedly, he looked confused.
“...A puppy? Master? Leciel... hold on a second.”
??? took the opportunity to shout angrily in his head.
[See? She’s spouting nonsense. Just replicate it.]
...It was true.
For Leciel, who wasn’t good with words, it was too difficult a task to coherently convey the many complex emotions that had swept through her over such a long time in front of the person involved.
‘I understand the context.’
The hero tilted his head.
...He understood the overall context of forgiving and moving forward.
However, the detailed content took a lot of work to grasp.
This was because Leciel, despite feeling she had approached the conversation calmly, had actually spent over 30 minutes alternately sobbing and venting her anger, making her story somewhat disjointed.
Particularly at the part where she compared herself to a puppy, her emotions overwhelmed her, making it harder to understand.
So the hero calmly asked again.
“I’m sorry, but could you repeat that...”
“L-let’s talk later.”
Having exhausted all her courage, Leciel’s face turned beet red as she hastily left the tent.
The hero and ??? watched her retreating figure blankly.
[... She’s still a child. I thought she’d at least put on a sword dance.]
‘.......’
Indeed, she was a child.
Though she spoke little, seemed mature, and was incredibly powerful, it was easy to forget that she was young.
The hero repeated one of the things Leciel had babbled about.
“So don’t leave again and stay like before.”
...Like before.
It was about a week before Avalon would be completed.
In other words, seven days were left until the final preparations for the decisive battle began in earnest.
It seemed clear what needed to be done in that time.
‘Since I’ve been found out anyway….’
It wouldn’t hurt to go all out.
.
.
.
The next day.
It was an embarrassingly early morning to call it dawn.
“Snore—”
“Snore—”
The sound of children in deep sleep filled the tent of the Lotus Knights.
Thud—
Heavy footsteps echoed.
“Wake up.”
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