Leona: "Your back is wider than I thought"Runfar: "I will take that as a compliment"
Leona: "I hope I am not too heavy"
Runfar: "Just heavy enough for me to be able to carry"
Leona: "You don"t hold back on your thoughts at all, do you?"
Runfar: "Not a chance"
Runfar ended up carrying Leona on his back after she ended up tripping and twisting her ankle. She could have teleported but chose not to due to the crowds in order to avoid drawing suspicion.
So now, Runfar was carrying her to reach a less crowded place so that she could teleport away without anyone noticing.
It was a rather awkward situation.
Runfar: "About earlier…Well, what can I say? Hum, I am very sorry"
Leona: "No, you don"t need to apologize at all, Runfar. In fact, I should be apologizing and thanking you. My selfishness made it necessary for you to fight and lie on my behalf. And you even saved the Princess and kept my secret. I couldn"t ask for more."
She embraced Runfar. He could feel her softness on his back.
Leona: "Thank you. Thank you so much. I don"t know what I would do without you"
Runfar: "You are very welcome"
Leona: "I wonder…It must have been fate that we met each other"
Runfar: "The same fate that forced you to become a hero? And before you do, please don"t lie and tell me that you actually enjoy it, because by now I know that is not true"
Leona: "Can"t hide anything from you, can I? You must have guessed from me asking you for the dress, right?"
Runfar: "I had my suspicions, but the dress confirmed it"
Leona: "I never thought my feelings were so easy to see through. It"s true. If I had a choice between being a hero and being a normal girl, I would probably choose the latter. But I am afraid that so long as the hero is needed, that is impossible"
Runfar: "We don"t choose our fates. G.o.ds just take their pick to either bless or curse, but either way, you end up stuck with a role, whether you like it or not. Eternally dancing like fools to their music"
Runfar: "This is weird. Out of all people, why the one I can empathize the best with is my arch-enemy?"
Both of them were essentially p.a.w.ns to G.o.ds, Solaris and Chronos. Blessing or a curse, it did not matter, but it still ended up putting the two mortals into their respective roles.
One ended up a villain while the other a hero, all due to the meddling done by G.o.ds. But in some ways, they were not so different.
And now the two opposing chess pieces were at a stalemate.
Leona: "What choice do we have? We are mere mortals"
Runfar: "For one, we can step off the chess board. Abandon the roles we were given and rebel against the ones who made the rules."
That was exactly what Dark Lord was doing.
Rather than be chess piece, he wanted to become the player and win the game.
Leona: "I wish I could. But as long as Demon King and Dark Lord remain, I cannot do that"
Runfar: "Perhaps Demon King and Dark Lord are both same as you, stuck in the roles of the villains, because the G.o.ds have defined them so."
Leona: "I can hardly believe that the Dark Lord who maimed me can be a victim of any sorts. If anything, he is most likely the perpetrator"
Dark Lord was a rather sensitive subject for her, since he was the only person who managed to hurt her so extensively.
Even now, she was still feeling the aftermath of his actions upon her damaged blessing.
Runfar: "Perhaps you are right. I am not sure who this Dark Lord person is, but from what you have told me, he sounds like someone very dangerous."
A white lie, but she did not doubt him for a second.
Leona: "He is. In fact, I wanted to protect you from him no matter what, but look at me, pathetically clinging to your back. If he shows up again, I…I don"t know if I can protect you. I don"t know if I can protect anyone! I couldn"t even beat the crow demon lord…."
Runfar heard a strange sound, for a moment, he thought he was mistaken, but then he felt a wet sensation of tears travelling down his neck. There was no doubt about it, Leona was sobbing.
Leona: "I can tell you that my strength is almost back, I can tell you that by the end of the month I will have gained back all that I have lost, but that would be a lie. During the battle against the bandits, over half of my blessing"s abilities were no longer functioning. I even got struck by an arrow on my shoulder…."
Runfar: "So the blood she was covered in was not only from the bandits, huh"
Leona: "Why didn"t Lord Solaris choose someone more worthy of wielding his blessing? Why did he choose me as his champion? As the only one with the blessing of King of G.o.ds, aside from becoming a hero, what choice did it give me?!!"
Because Runfar was the one friend who knew her secret, he was also the only one to whom she could tell of her pains. And in contrast to her cheerful outward demeanor, she suffered plenty on the inside.
Talking to Runfar allowed her to tell him all that plagued her heart.
Leona: "I know they are not humans, I know they are demons and non-humans, but…we killed so many of them. Men, women, even children…Heroes…What a glorified name for murderers…I am well aware that it is too late for me to go back. I have taken too many lives for me to simply drop my duty half way."
Runfar: "I couldn"t agree more. We might have wanted our lives to be different, but there is no changing the reality. Perhaps it is still too early to challenge the ones who are making the rules. But the fact we are still stuck to our roles it still too sad. If anything, I would have wanted the circ.u.mstances to be different"
She was champion of Solaris, a hero.
He was champion of Olim, a villain.
Had their circ.u.mstances been different, Runfar would have wanted to be on her side, not just pretending.
In another life, under different circ.u.mstances, perhaps the two of them could have been true friends.
Leona: "Yeah. Maybe after the war is won, everyone can go back to their peaceful lives"
Runfar: "Sure sounds like a good dream to have"
But that"s all it will ever be, a dream.
Leona: "Yeah. I am glad my future husband is a very understanding person."
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Runfar: "Your future husband? You never told me you were betrothed! Don"t tell me… did your father find out your secret? Did he arrange for you to marry someone…?"
Then he saw the cat-like smile on her face.
He finally understood.
Runfar: "Oh, you meant me. Hhha. Oops, kind of had a little freak out there, didn"t I? I mean, I am glad to oblige. I mean…If you will have me"
The two of them ended up chuckling after remembering how they pretended to be each other"s sweethearts.
Leona: "You truly are a kind person, aren"t you? I can tell. At the very least, I know that this part of my blessing is still working."
Runfar couldn"t help but nervously laugh.
By now, he knew that her blessing operated on fate, twisting the fate to her advantage.
Everything affected by fate would be altered by her blessing.
But the problem was….Runfar, or Dark Lord, is Interference.
Desolai once told him, Interference is ultimate loose cannon in reality, because not even G.o.ds can predict its future.
What marked him as Interference was the very fact that he lacked fate.
And that was what made him so dangerous to G.o.ds, because they cannot control him.
Every action he takes will have effect of altering the reality against what G.o.ds would have wanted. In a sense, he was poison that was slowly seeping into the veins of this reality, corrupting everything in its wake.
As Interference, a fateless being, Runfar was immune to the effects of Leona"s blessing, which allowed Dark Lord to strike her down in the first place.
And now, he literally was the one person who could lie to her face without being found out.
Manipulating her feelings for him, making her trust him….the very fact he could influence a key figure like her with words alone was a very powerful thing.
Pen is mightier than the sword, but maybe the spoken words exceeded both.
Because the spoken words can pull the strings of one"s heart.
Leona: "Runfar, you might already know, but to me, you are a very precious person. My best friend, the one person, aside from my family, I can trust."
Runfar: "I am glad to hear that"
Runfar couldn"t help but note the irony of the situation; a hero that thinks of the villain"s alter ego as her closest friend.
Their relationship couldn"t be more complicated than it already was.
But as things stood, he felt no hatred towards her, even if she was his enemy.What he felt towards her was….pity.
At the very least, Dark Lord chose to rebel, but she…she kept following the path a G.o.d set before her, like a dog, afraid to disobey its owner.
Runfar: "I wonder what her expression would be like if she knew that I was the Dark Lord"
Shortly afterwards, they reached a less crowded location, Leona bid him farewell and teleported, leaving Runfar seemingly by himself.
Runfar: "You can come out now"
From thin air, the form of a certain snake demon emerged.
Camilla: "Camilla is here, reporting to master"
Runfar: "Please tell me there is nothing worth reporting about"
Camilla: "About that…"
It was obvious that there was something he had to report.
Runfar: "Here we go again…"