Leon’s brow furrowed tightly.
He signaled, and the bard walked over with a smile plastered across his face.
Leon fished three copper coins out of the public fund and tossed them accurately into the tattered hat.
“Good song,” Leon said in a calm tone, as if making casual conversation. “This new song sounds quite realistic; it has a lot of detail. Where did the news come from?”
“Oh, generous guest!” The bard pocketed the money, his smile brightening even further. “This is explosive news just in from the west! A public announcement issued by the Holy Light Church itself. They say even the Empire has confirmed it.”
“The Church... even found a ‘body’?” Leon pressed, his eyes turning cold.
“Didn’t they just!” the bard exclaimed, spit flying. “I heard it was a gruesome sight—burned so badly you couldn’t even tell it was human! But the Church used divine arts to confirm it; it was the last princess, no doubt about it! The Sylvania royal line is completely dead now. I suppose you could say a scourge has been removed from the continent.”
“Nonsense... Utter nonsense!!”
Lucrezia finally couldn't take it anymore.
She slammed her hand on the table and stood up, her small face flushed red and her entire body trembling.
“I... I say you are spreading rumors! What Abyss?! What sin?! It’s all absolute bullshit!”
The bard was startled by her sudden outburst, staring blankly at the beautiful young girl.
Patrons at several other tables in the tavern also looked over curiously, whispering among themselves.
“Sit down.”
Leon was quick, grabbing her wrist and forcibly pulling her back into her seat.
“Apologies.”
He gave the bard an apologetic, helpless smile and pointed to his own head. “My sister... she’s not all there. She can’t stand tragic stories like this; she gets too immersed in the drama.”
“Oh... oh, I see, I see.” The bard shrugged, not giving it a second thought, and happily went back to his playing and singing with his coins.
“What are you doing!”
Lucrezia lowered her voice, glaring at Leon with red-rimmed eyes. “How... how dare they say that! They actually said I was dead?! They even forged a body?! And they slandered my father for colluding with the Abyss?!”
Leon didn’t answer; he simply tore off a piece of hard bread and stuffed it into his mouth.
This was the real trouble...
He sighed inwardly.
An official declaration of death wasn’t just to cut off any hope for the restorationists; it was to make the smear campaign permanent.
This meant the Church had no intention of letting her go. The so-called ‘body’ was just a smokescreen; the pursuit in the shadows would only become more frenzied.
Lucrezia’s mood had plummeted to rock bottom because of this incident. She stared at the stew in front of her, unable to swallow a single spoonful, feeling so wronged she wanted to cry.
After a while.
Leon, who had long finished his own portion, naturally reached out and pulled her bowl—of which she had only eaten a few bites—over to himself.
“Hey! What are you doing!” Lucrezia snapped out of her daze, her food-guarding instinct instantly awakening.
“You weren’t eating it anyway.” Leon picked up a spoon as if to start eating. “The minced meat smells pretty good; it shouldn’t go to waste. Besides, I’m still hungry.”
“You...! Who said I wasn’t eating!”
Like a squirrel having its nuts snatched away, Lucrezia quickly grabbed her bowl back and held it tightly to her chest.
“I bought this with money! Why should I let you eat it!”
She picked up her spoon and, with a mix of resentment and catharsis, transformed her grief and anger into an appetite. In a few quick bites, she cleared the rest of the stew and that tooth-breakingly hard black bread, her cheeks bulging as she ate.
Seeing her huffing like that, the corner of Leon’s mouth twitched upward almost imperceptibly.
“Let’s go back.”
Once she finished the last bite, Leon stood up. Ignoring the glare she was still leveling at him, he walked straight toward the stairs.
“Wait for me! You trash!”
Lucrezia grabbed the small coin purse on the table. Because her ankle still hurt, she could only limp hurriedly after him.
“You hateful, stinking trash! You don’t know how to care for people at all! You even tried to steal my food!”
“It’s all your fault, you stinking trash! Stealing my food! And suddenly barging in to spy on me... causing me to sprain my ankle!!”
As soon as they returned to that dilapidated room, Lucrezia couldn't hold it together anymore.
She sat down hard on the creaking wooden bed, her delicate face twisted in pain.
The sharp stings coming from her slender ankle made her start complaining again, her mouth moving like a machine gun.
“You did that to yourself, and you’re blaming me?”
Leon checked the door panel he had broken earlier, confirming it could still be jammed shut, before turning around.
He leaned against the doorframe, watching the pampered girl clutching her ankle and crying out in pain. He had originally intended to go over and check on her.
But hearing her shift the blame so righteously, his lip twitched, and he stopped in his tracks.
“Fine, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have rushed in when you fell; I should have waited until you were paralyzed before coming in to collect your corpse.”
Leon casually rummaged through the loot from the Grizzly Bear Adventurer Team and pulled out a bottle of low-quality bruise ointment.
“Take it.”
Without even looking, he tossed the bottle of pungent ointment over, like throwing a bone to a dog.
Turning around, he began to set up his bed on the floor with fluid movements, showing no intention of helping her.
“You jerk! You have no gentlemanly grace at all!”
Lucrezia scrambled to catch the medicine bottle, nearly letting it hit her in the face.
She resentfully unscrewed the cap, and the pungent smell of low-quality herbs mixed with alcohol immediately hit her, making her scowl.
“Hiss...”
As she clumsily applied the medicine to her swollen ankle, she gasped from the pain, her mutterings never stopping:
“It’s all because of you that I’ve fallen to this state... can’t even afford a bath... and I sprained my ankle...”
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Then she remembered what she had heard downstairs, and a surge of grievance rushed to her head:
“And that damn bard! What does he mean, I’m dead?! It’s absolute nonsense! I’m clearly alive and well! They are cursing me! It’s sacrilege!”
“Don’t take a bard’s words to heart; if you take them seriously, you’ve already lost.”
Leon responded dismissively without turning around.
He laid out the stiff blanket on the floor, tucked his hands behind his head, and lay straight down, his voice lazy:
“But tomorrow we really do need to poke around and see what the Church and the Empire are up to. Since those zealots dared to issue an announcement, it means...”
Before he could finish, he seemed to remember something and sat up again.
Lucrezia, who had just finished applying the ointment, was startled by his sudden, corpse-like movement.
She looked up, seeing the hand with distinct knuckles reaching toward her, and blinked in a slight daze.
Almost instinctively, as if following some established muscle memory, she reached out and obediently placed her hand in his palm.
Leon was also stunned for a moment.
Feeling the softness in his palm, his eyebrows arched slightly, and a playful smile curled on his lips.
“Ho, so well-behaved?”
Rate on N.U.
