'Wield me in battle.'
Arondight's words echoed in Krieg's mind as he woke up early in the morning. The faint sunlight coming from the glass window showed the day had barely started and yet he was already up. Somehow he was able to rest even better than when he was at Robert's house.
He got out of the bed covered in fur blankets and stood up. He made the wooden floor creak beneath his weight as he adjusted the robe that was placed beside the working stove. After getting ready he headed out the hallway and met Leona just coming out of her own room.
"Good morning, Leona."
"Ah." She raised her hand slightly to greet him. "Good morning, Krieg."
She joined him walking to the kitchen. He looked at her with a worried expression.
"Were you able to rest?"
"Yes, surprisingly well. I think it might have to do with Sylphia's embrace."
Krieg scratched the side of his head as a slight blush of red started to appear on his face.
"I'd appreciate it more if she didn't have to pick us up."
"Haha, what did she say again? 'Even a knight needs to be pampered from time to time'?"
"Oh please Leona, don't make me remember it again."
"Sorry, sorry, it was just that… I wasn't expecting her to be so kind."
"She is your great grandmother so…"
Leona glanced down with a faint smile on her face.
"Unconditional love is surely powerful."
"And so is actual power."
A familiar male voice cut through their conversation as they entered the kitchen. Robert was sitting on the same chair as the day before, however this time he was given a cup of warm tea from Arondight as hospitality.
"Robert…?" Leona looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You're up early."
"I could say the same to you." He said before picking up the white porcelain cup. For a few moments he stared at it before taking a sip. "Hmm! This tea is really good."
Arondight bowed with a satisfied yet quiet smile on her face.
"Thank you, sir Robert."
Leona sat across from him.
"You told me you had a way to deal with this 'trauma' of mine." She asked. "What is your plan?"
"Ah, we'll get there when we get there. First get some breakfast, even Sylphia had the decency to let me take a breather in the house for once."
"Next time I'll leave you outside."
A haughty voice came from outside. Leona leaned on her left and noticed the dragon knight kneeling in front of the house. Despite her human appearance, shrinking her enormous dragon body to fit in such a small space made her uncomfortable which is why she slept outside the day prior.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. But the point still stands, you've changed quite a lot since the last time I met you."
"And you are still the insolent man I've met before."
"Hah!" Robert laughed. "But your father still entrusted you little ones to me didn't he?"
A heavy sigh came from the outside. Arondight finished preparing similar cups of tea for Leona and Krieg before heading outside with a large pot filled with something. Since she was curious, the tactician stood up and followed her.
The maid put the cooking pot down on the snow which melted under it and lifted the lid, revealing a deep green round vegetable that was boiling inside.
'What is that…?'
Her thought was interrupted by Sylphia reaching for it even in the boiling hot water. The dragon knight carefully used her thumb and index finger and gently plucked it out of the pot and took a single bite that made the entire thing vanish in her mouth. She then rolled the stalk on her index finger and flicked it downhill—it didn't take long before the dark dot disappeared amidst the snow. Arondight lifted the pot back and turned around.
"Hm?" She noticed Leona looking curiously up at Sylphia. "Is it your first time seeing a kabocha?"
"Kabocha?"
"It's a type of squash." Robert yelled from inside the house. "You know that weird shaped vegetable, a bit of a yellow orange-ish color."
Leona took a sip of her tea as she continued thinking deeply about it.
"Squash… ah, I know which one you're talking about."
Sylphia finished munching it down and looked at Leona.
"I can go look for some if you want for lunch."
Despite towering four meters high—the dragon knight was strangely warm. The more Leona got to know about her, the more she realized how kind she truly was.
"If it's not too much trouble… I'd like to try it."
"Mmm… sure thing."
Arondight smiled quietly while making her way inside to put the cooking pot away in the marble sink. She noticed the stove getting low on fire so she kneeled beside it where neatly cut logs were stacked.
As she fed the stove with firewood, Krieg kept quietly looking at her while trying to comprehend why a fabled weapon of eld would choose him as her wielder.
"What's on your mind?" Robert nonchalantly asked as he noticed the knight's intense gaze on the woman's back. "I may be blunt but I'll make some effort to help you nonetheless."
"It's… nothing."
Krieg turned back to the table and grabbed the fancy porcelain teacup. The nutty fresh aroma put his mind at ease as he tried to make sense of her words from the previous night.
'Wield me in battle.'
Doubts lingered in his mind, being worthy of a blade such as her was not only a matter of prowess, it was a matter of pride. Both as a swordsman and a knight that swore to protect his liege no matter the cost. He silently clenched his teeth as he put the teacup on the table.
'No matter the cost and yet I let go of that blade the moment I heard her voice…'
The pain was unimaginable—if it was anyone but him they would've died from the shock, but Krieg didn't know that, there was no way he could possibly know.
A slow and heavy sigh caught his attention as he looked up across the table and Robert was shaking his head.
"This is… how can I say." He scratched the side of his own chin. "Pitiful."
"Hah?"
"Look." He leaned forward while glancing at Arondight, who was still taking care of the fire and not paying attention to them. "I can already half guess what happened between the two of you for you to be acting like this. Let me tell you something, you're probably overthinking."
"...!" The knight flinched as it felt like the sage was reading his mind. "I don't need your meddlesome counseling."
Robert shrugged as he sighed once again before settling his empty teacup on the table.
"Think what you want, honorable knight. Eventually you'll see that there is more than duty and pride in life." He stood up and raised his voice along with his right hand in a casual greeting fashion. "The tea was great, Aron. You're getting better and better by the years."
The woman stood and turned around to face him as she bowed with a smile.
"You flatter me, sir Robert."
He nodded before heading outside. Krieg quietly clenched his left hand as his head hung low.
"Curses…"
He quietly muttered to himself.
Outside. Leona was sitting by the porch as she spoke with Sylphia, the conversation was going well until Robert made his presence known by standing in between them.
"So–"
"Be quiet." Sylphia replied without batting an eye. "We're in the middle of something."
"Ugh… is your 'something' more important than helping her with her trauma?"
"..." The dragon knight didn't reply and instead let out a slow and long sigh. "What do you want?"
"Just give me a minute with your granddaughter. I need to talk with her."
She frowned her brows but nevertheless she stood up and began to walk away from the house. Each of her steps equaled about ten of Leona's paces through the deep snow. Robert smiled before turning to the tactician.
"Are you ready to begin?"
"Even if I say that I'm not, will you let me prepare?"
"Eh… a minute at best."
She left the teacup on the porch and stood up. She closed her eyes and upon taking a long and deep breath she opened them again and looked at him.
"I'm ready."
He nodded as he turned sideways.
"Come, let's move a bit further away from the house."
After a couple of minutes of walking through the path carved by Sylphia's stride, they were in the middle of the snow covered hill. A few meters ahead Sylphia turned around to the two.
Robert stood beside Leona and snapped his finger which made the frostburnt silver longsword appear in front of her and fall flat on the snow.
The tactician looked at the blade before turning to Robert.
"Why did you bring Avalon here?"
"It's for an experiment." He snapped his fingers once again and the blade started to float with the handle facing her right hand. "Don't grab it yet." He then turned to Sylphia and shouted. "Can you go into your dragon form and roar when I give you the signal?!"
The large dragon knight nodded once. Leona swallowed dry as she nervously turned to the sage—beads of sweat were already gathering around her brow.
"So—how exactly is this going to help me?"
He replied without looking at her.
"It probably won't."
He raised his left hand and gave the dragon knight a thumbs up. At that moment Leona turned around and witnessed Sylphia's armor start to glow with mana, a blinding blue light engulfed her like flames—her wings suddenly expanded further, her slender body became bulkier as the fully armored knight became a towering dragon.
Once the platinum wyrm was finally transformed it reared its head back and in that moment Leona's knees were already on the verge of giving out. The mere sight of her transformation was enough to send a terrible chill throughout her whole body as each of her muscles locked in place. The sunny morning suddenly felt cold—it was like heat was completely sucked out of her body.
'No… not again…!'
And then it happened. An ear splitting roar that reverberated throughout her bones—her knees buckled as the freezing sensation suddenly worsened a hundredfold. She could feel the air coming out of her lungs as she gasped—each breath becoming an ordeal.
It was like staring death in its eyes. Her trembling body just wouldn't stop shaking, despair and dread consumed her as her mind tried to make sense of what was happening.
Robert's eyes widened the moment her knees hit the snow as he forcibly pushed the sword's handle into her hand. Suddenly. Leona's mind went blank—it was like a line being snapped under great tension.
Her right hand grabbed the handle and stabbed the blade through the snow in order to prevent herself from falling over. At that moment even Sylphia felt something was wrong.
With a steady breath, the tactician exhaled before standing up. The shaking was gone and so was the kind look in her eyes.
Leona turned to Robert and frowned her brows in a gaze that could pierce through the sage.
"Ah… now it makes sense."
"You…" The tactician muttered under her breath. "Why are you doing this to her?"
"So you are the fabled Empress." She smirked. "As I thought, having such a large amount of mana isn't just because of her blood–"
He couldn't even finish his sentence, instead he had to dodge a slash coming for his throat by using magic to jump away. Leona flicked her hair out of her face as she adjusted the grip on the blade—her sharp glare while looking at Robert made it all clear to Sylphia. The young woman in front of her was not the great granddaughter she was just talking to moments ago.
"Robert, if you insist on causing her pain. I promise you, I'll have your head."
"Hah. So you can control her body if you wish."
"Thanks to your meddling nature!"
In a sudden burst, Leona dashed across the snow into an overhead slash that would have bisected the sage in half had he not stepped aside.
"Those tricks might have worked on the 'other' me." He gave her a wry smile "But they won't serve you here."
He flicked his palm and a blast of air sent the tactician flying across the snow until she hit her back against Sylphia's wing which cushioned the impact.
"Argh…! Robert!" Leona shouted from atop her lungs, hatred filled her being as she brandished Avalon. "I'LL END YOU!"
The enraged tactician made Sylphia worry as she inadvertently spoke in dragon language.
"Leona!" She was about to charge back at the sage but once she heard her great grandmother's voice she simply stopped. "What is happening to you?!"
She slowly turned around and once she locked eyes with the platinum dragon she was left with a half open mouth as she muttered under breath.
"Grandmother…?"
A single tear fell down her right eye as Avalon's handle slipped from between her fingers. As the blade hit the snow, so did the tactician upon passing out on the spot.
Robert scratched his chin before looking at his own right hand. His ring and pinky finger were stained red. He then touched his throat and noticed there was a very faint cut just enough to draw blood.
"Huh… so this is the Empress' prowess. No wonder Xenovia had trouble dealing with her."
He then noticed Sylphia approaching him in her knight form already carrying Leona in her arms.
"You have some explaining to do and I won't take no for an answer."
Seeing how infuriated she was, he simply raised his hands and said.
"Very well. I think you deserve some answers."