Chapter 161

Chapter 161

While I took a moment to understand what was happening, Leone gently pushed away my fist.

She stood there with a bright smile as if waiting for my response.

“...”

Who was this girl?

This was the third time we'd met.

I didn’t know exactly what she was thinking, but I'd talked with her enough to get a general idea of her thoughts and her purpose...

I still know very little about her, so let's keep it simple for now.

Might she be an enemy?

No, she definitely wasn’t.

It was thanks to Leone's advice that I’d realized Headmaster Alderson was a puppet.

And just now, she could have easily ambushed me when I hadn’t sensed her presence.

If she really were my enemy, she’d had plenty of opportunities to cause more trouble for me.

Is she an ally, then?

I couldn’t say that either, though.

Something about her reasons for helping me reeked of ulterior motives. At the very least, her actions were not coming from a place of goodwill.

That was all to say that I could trust her... for the time being.

“How do you plan to help?” I asked.

It would be better if she had a plan of her own. At the very least, she wouldn’t stab me in the back until her plan was finished.

The right amount of cooperation, the right amount of caution. Perfect conditions for a temporary alliance.

“You're trying to get the headmaster, right?”

“That's right.”

“Hmm.” Leone's head tilted at an angle.

I stopped for a moment as she seemed to be considering a plan. Was she formulating one on the fly?

Her head tilted from side to side and her inky hair swished, flowing gently down.

I took a moment to note the color of her hair.

In The Empire, black hair was in some ways rarer than red.

While blazing crimson like Glenn's was rare, reddish-brown or orange hair was surprisingly common.

Like, for example, Arzan and Pam.

Black hair, on the other hand, was rare.

In the case of Bednicker, our dark-fairy ancestry made black hair more common... But outside of that, it was a rare color across the continent.

And those eyes, red as a rabbit’s.

Black hair and red eyes.

Leone possessed two of the rarest colors in the Empire.

Was it mere coincidence that she’d been born with those particular features?

Or...

“All right.” Leone's lips curled, interrupting my thoughts. “That's Kajita, the commander of the Infernal Legion. For a demon, it’s quite the oddball.”

Her way of speaking was different from last time, I suddenly realized.

It didn't feel awkward.

It wasn’t that this was her natural way of speaking. Rather, any tone seemed to suit her.

“An oddball?”

“More like an innate martial artist? You can’t really call it honorable, but it does prefer one-on-one duels.”

“A demon being a martial artist?”

I chuckled at the absurdity. Closer to a scoff, if you prefer.

But Leone didn't seem offended by my response. “If we both attack it, it’ll quite literally explode in rage, use its full power, and burn us to ash in no time.”

“Then what do you say we do?”

“We'll split the tasks. One of us deals with Kajita while the other rescues the headmaster. We just need to buy time. The demon is bound to this underground prison, so once the headmaster has been rescued, we can make a run for it.”

“...”

It was a decent plan.

If everything she said was true, at least.

Let's assume that I do go along with her plan.

There was one important question that still needed an answer.

“Who's going to fight that guy?”

It would obviously be much harder and more dangerous to stall a high-ranking demon commander.

Leone had to be aware of that.

Of course, I had already intended to face the demon, but...

I was curious about Leone’s intentions.

“You decide,” Leone said, smiling. “I don't mind either way. I'm pretty versatile.”

...That was not a response I’d been expecting.

Crossing my arms, I replied, “Which are you more confident in?”

“Hmm. Probably the rescue, since I’m good at concealing my presence.

Swoosh...

Leone's presence faded as she said that, even though she was right in front of me.

It’s like she’s a ghost.

I nodded. “Okay. I'll take the demon.”

The corners of Leone's eyes curved up. “Good choice.”

Her reaction was hard to read.

Part of her seemed amused by my unexpected response, and another part seemed satisfied that it was what she’d anticipated.

I had a lot of questions for her, but I decided to save them for after Headmaster Alderson was rescued.

“Good luck, then.” Leone waved and promptly disappeared into the darkness of the prison.

It is controlling the flames.

Thanks to that, Headmaster Alderson, chained right behind him, didn't seem to feel any of the heat.

Even though Kajita was emitting enough heat to melt iron bars, Alderson was unaffected.

Then what of Leone?

Could she pick up on the flow of that heat and move close to Headmaster Alderson?

...

Well, she’d figure it out.

I cleared my thoughts of Leone completely and, as if entranced, fixated my gaze on the inferno.

For some reason, the crown of my head itched.

It felt like my brain was either softening or wiggling around.

But it wasn’t unpleasant.

Though I felt a slight sense of urgency, it was not otherwise a bad feeling.

“So, I just have to touch it, huh?” I murmured, feeling oddly like a moth drawn to a flame.

[Why do you hasten to your demise...]

Step.

Ignoring Kajita, I took a step forward, at the same time activating the Strongest Fire Technique.

Whoosh.

The sensation of the energy coming from my inner core was different than usual.

It’s cold.

It had to be because of Kajita's inferno.

It was refreshing—more than that, it was fun.

It was natural, of course, but I rarely felt cold internally.

Thud.

One step after another.

I walked with force, as if to leave marks on the ground.

At a glance, it might have looked like I was struggling, but I was not.

The reason for my sluggish steps lay within me.

As I circulated my true ki as usual, the pleasant coolness rushing through my meridians suddenly revealed a way to improve my true-ki control.

It was a fascinating experience.

A path I had walked for decades.

It was as if I had discovered something new in a landscape that was now so familiar that it had become boring.

[How in Hell...]

I had taken about five steps when Kajita's baffled voice reached my ears again.

I ignored it once more.

Instead, I fully embraced the heat of the inferno.

I opened wide my half-closed eyes, stung by the heat.

Flames seeped into my slightly parted lips.

It felt like I had swallowed fire as my throat felt the thrum of the heat.

Yet within the inferno, my senses only sharpened.

If a parched person was dying in the middle of a desert, the sensation of a single drop of water on their skin would be so vividly felt.

So too was the penetration of the heat. It was as if it was seeping directly into my body.

...Ah.

The true ki writhing inside me... It wasn’t just the flow, every individual component of it became palpable.

For me, the true ki coursing through my body took the form of flame, but I’d often heard others describe it as feeling more like a liquid.

Since true ki–or mana—flowed through the meridians, that comparison wasn’t exactly wrong.

If anything, it was probably my perception that was unusual.

Yet sensations, by their very nature, were difficult to describe in words. Someone couldn’t truly understand a sensation until they’d experienced it firsthand.

So this is what it feels like.

I finally understood the true ki in my body in terms of water.

It was a rare and unique experience.

The true ki I had always carried was not truly fire, after all.

True ki was capable of transforming into anything. It was energy with boundless, infinite potential.

This coldness, this chill.

A cold flame.

The thought that suddenly came to mind etched itself deep within me.

It was a spark of inspiration that had come out of nowhere.

The third stage of the Strongest Fire Technique. I’d thought I wasn’t ready to bring it out, but now...

Fwoosh.

The inferno I had accepted scorched my insides black.

[...]

At some point, the distance between Kajita and me had narrowed to a single foot.

His fiercely flickering flames filled my vision. They reminded me of a bonfire struggling under the rain.

I reached the source of the heat, and oddly, the pain disappeared. The Strongest Fire Technique had absorbed the inferno and I had, to some extent, adapted to it.

The coolness of my true ki began to feel like heat again.

Feeling somewhat disappointed, I muttered to myself, “...A little too lukewarm for an inferno, don’t you think?”

[...]

“Isn’t there any way to turn up the heat a bit more?”

____