章 1: Back home?
"Is it…" Mei's voice trembled the same way her knees did. Her eyes widened as she stared at the unmoving mass of meat and metal, formerly known as the Demon Absolute.
"It's dead."
Leo spared just a single glance at the deceased demon deity before sheathing his sword and moving over to a spot unusually undirtied by the everpresent mix of red and black blood.
In this final cell of the world's dungeon, countless demons and humans died alike, never to know the result of the ultimate showdown.
'Back three, four worlds ago, I would still consider it to be the ultimate showdown between the forces of good and evil. But now…?'
Leo looked over his shoulder before rolling his eyes right as he turned his head away and sat down on the strangely clean spot of the demon throne's room floor.
"We did it…" Castor muttered, heavily resting upon the long handle of his unwieldy war hammer.
Today was his big day. He proved to the world that this unhandy weapon was enough for him to do his part in this generational task.
A few luckily surviving soldiers stood all over the massive cell. Some pondered over their luck which allowed them to keep their lives. Others wasted no time and went into a frenzy of looting the valuable materials that could be taken from the corpses of the high-rank demons.
Some cried in pain, others cried in grief while others sobbed in relief.
Today was a big day not only for Castor, who just proved his hammer's might but for all the humans that lived through hell to today finally gain the right to celebrate victory.
A victory of the good over the evil…
Or so every goddess-aligned being would believe, failing to realize it was simply a shift from the old civilization to the new.
The old system that wasn't efficient with the use of the resources it could gain was getting replaced by a system better suited to the task.
'And that's what it boils down to. It's a pity everyone's too drunk on their victory to even notice it…'
Leo refused his desire to roll his eyes again, opting to close them instead.
The demon absolute was gone. For others, it called for the most warranted celebration. But for Leo, it meant the timer of his summoning started to tick.
'I need to focus and hurry up.'
Ignoring the rising commotion within the massive cell, Leo took a deep breath and cleared his mind.
Soon, the voices from all around the middle-aged hero faded away into obscurity, screened off by the conscious effort of his well-trained brain.
Leo needed only a moment to reach the state of perfect control, a state that allowed him to both inspect and fully control the constellation of six burning stars of might. Six different sources of power that fueled his unyielding efforts to tread the path of the army of the so-called light.
Five of them, the lone memento of the worlds he already saved. And the sixth just finished forming within the middle-aged man's soul, adding up to the powers he rightfully earned over the course of the last…
'How long exactly was it since this hell started?' Leo asked himself. Shortly after that, he had to resist the desire to whine to high heaven about just how hard it could be to focus at times.
It didn't matter how many years, decades, or centuries have passed.
Living through around half of a human lifespan in every world that he visited thus far, Leo has long since outlived his looks. And yet, as if not subject to the passage of time in the worlds it threw Leo in, whatever spell or curse was responsible for his fate would always restore him to just a slightly older version of his last, freshly summoned self.
Still.
Despite all the thoughts, doubts, and regret that plagued Leo's mind, he continued to focus himself, and all of his power down into the very flashpoints it was igniting from. A process necessary, for all of the power he failed to hide deep within himself, would scatter away during the summoning process.
'Focus…' Leo thought, squeezing all of his power down, splitting it from a complex weave into barebone strands that he then sucked all the way back to where they came from. And as his aura, bit by bit continued to fade into nothingness…
"Hey, Leo…" Mei softly called out as she approached the middle-aged man with a complicated expression full of repressed emotions.
Leo took a deep breath, halting the process of condensation, too worried even this slight distraction would be enough to put a wrench in his plans.
"What is it, Mei?" Leo asked, slowly opening his eyes only to turn them to the woman's reluctant face.
"Do you remember…" Mei hesitated and looked away, only to calm her breath and force her eyes back on the target. "Do you remember the promise we've made?"
Not everyone in the massive cell heard or otherwise noticed this small exchange. Those who did, Castor included, instantly stopped their celebration and drew nearer, eager to see how this encounter would play out.
"I've promised to answer your question. The question that somehow you couldn't ask before the subjugation came to an end."
Leo resisted the desire to sigh.
'I know I wasn't the best companion to talk with… But why did you have to wait so long to ask it?' Leo complained in his thoughts, still as baffled by Mei's approach as he was when she first pretty much forced him to swear on his name.
"Then…" Mei hesitated, only raising the anticipation of all those who drew near to observe the spectacle. "Throughout all those years of fighting, traveling, and all of that…"
Mei's cheeks covered in a thick layer of red, intense blush.
"Why were you always so detached?" Mei raised her eyes and looked squarely at Leo's face, determined not to let him go prior to receiving a satisfactory answer. "When we celebrated small victories, when we grieved for our fallen companions when we just talked and laughed during our late-night talks at the bonfire…"
Mei gulped her saliva down, the near-instant glance she threw around proving she was well aware of all the onlookers.
"When I tried to chat you up, to get to know you better, to…" the blush on Mei's face only intensified. After taking a deep breath, she gathered enough courage to continue, "When I was outright hitting on you…"
Mei gulped her saliva and fear down once again.
"Why did you refuse it all?"
A single tear formed in the corner of Mei's right eye. Her delicate hands unused to the weight of any weapon heavier than her staff now tightened into small, adorable fists.
By now, all those who failed to refuse the small commotion have now turned their attention towards it. Soldiers, officers, and minor heroes, all of them focused on the scene that promised to finally bring some answers to the most puzzling failed romance of the story of their journeys.
And with all of that attention now focused on himself, Leo sighed right as he completed his final preparation.
All of his power has now safely receded back to the flashpoint of its origin, deep within the middle-aged man's soul. In the eye of the beholder, Leo has now turned into nothing more but a veteran fighter, free of all the power that burdened him with great responsibilities.
"It's fairly simple, really," Leo answered after pretending to take his time thinking.
He knew the answer to this question. Four summonings, great journeys, and fights to the death for the fate of the world before, he came to face it for the very first time. And ever since then, he would know the answer to this question the very moment he would meet the companions that would aid him on his quest.
"For you, the death of the Demon Absolute marks the end of the story. From now on, your task will be to make sure the fruits of our labor will result in an era of peace, unwasted by all the corrupted ones who wish to personally profit from how the world will change now."
Leo rose up from his knees, taking just a quick look at the ground below his feet before raising his head and looking straight into Mei's eyes.
'It begins.'
The timer for Leo's curse has started to near its conclusion. And as if to anchor this fact in reality, a faint, blue shine started to rise in a small circle around the spottlessly clean centerpoint Leo stood at.
"For you, this hell is over, you can now ask the questions that you didn't dare to voice out before, fearing the act of asking it would alter the result or leave me with grief and regrets were you to die in today's battle."
Leo wasn't that thick-skinned or outright stupid not to notice the way Mei looked at him. He was aware of her feelings from the very moment they sprouted from the depths of her soul to blossom into the intense longing he could both see and feel whenever the saintess looked at him over the past few years.
"But for me, it's different."
Leo's statement, while uttered in the most casual voice the middle-aged man could produce, somehow held enough weight to force the whole, massive cell into silence.
Mei's eyes moved down, to Leo's feet, where the familiar, blue shine was growing brighter and brighter, quickly reaching the point even the slowest of the survivors would have no other choice but to notice.
"That's…" Baffled by the sight, Mei took a step back…
Only for her eyes to turn wide, the longing, determination, courage, and fear of rejection all vanishing from her face, replaced with the purest, rawest form of unadulterated panic.
"That's right." Leo nodded his head. "For the very same reason why you held back on asking this question, I've never had the right to answer it in a way you hope for."
Leo took a step forth, only for the ever-brighter circle below his feet to move along with him.
Just one step was enough, though, allowing the middle-aged, tired man to raise his hand and reach out, gently lowering his fingers upon Mei's delicate, soft cheek.
And for just one moment, Leo allowed all of his repressed emotions to return to their rightful spot.
His desire for Mei's perfect figure and curves. His sympathy for her cause and past. His admiration of the indomitable spirit of this feeble girl. His love…
All of those feelings flashed in Leo's eyes, only to hastily retreat behind the wall of indifference Leo had built over the last two hundred or so years.
"The reason why I can't answer to your feelings, regardless of how much I want to, is simple."
Leo took a deep breath, closing his eyes while allowing himself just one more moment of feeling Mei's face underneath his hand.
"Because what's the end of this perilous journey for you, is the start of a new hell for me."
The shine below Leo's feet grew strong enough to start blinding those who dared to look directly at it. And carved out of the light itself, tightly-packed runes started to carve out of nowhere, densely filling every last inch of the circle's insides.
A summoning circle. The very same ancient spell that Mei invoked along with the help of the goddess's strongest magicians on the day she brought salvation to her world. On the very same day, Leo opened up his eyes to this world for the very first time.
Struggling to resist the emotions he unleashed for just a moment, Leo failed to remove his hand from Mei's cheek. And in not doing so, he allowed his emotions to resurface for just another instant.
"Do you remember, back when we first met, how you mentioned and I confirmed it wasn't my first time going through an ordeal like that?" Leo asked, his voice growing unnaturally… No, it became as warm as it always should be, if not for the conviction that the once young man imposed upon himself, all for the sake of this very moment.
"I do," all serious and focused now, Mei raised her hand and pressed it down on Leo's palm, locking his hand against her own cheek.
"What I failed to mention back then, though, was that this summoning was never going to be my last."
Mei's eyes widened even further, the reality of the meaning behind Leo's worlds finally dawning upon her in its full, merciless might.
"N-no…"
Mei's hand trembled, allowing Leo to slide his own hand down the woman's face, giving it one last caress before he forcefully restrained all of his emotions and cast them out into the abyss of his exhausted soul.
"Mei, Castor, everyone," Leo raised his familiarly empty eyes to the crowd, giving them one last look before the shine of the summoning circle below his feet could grow bright enough to blind everyone and everything within the cell. "I wish you all the best. And please, don't let our efforts, the sacrifices we made, and the blood we shed go in vain."
Leo's lips twitched, before their right corner moved up, revealing the rarest expression one could experience upon Leo's face.
"Fare well."
The blue light suddenly exploded, growing so intense it washed away the reality itself.
Mei's face, separated by a mere inch from the tips of Leo's fingers, has now vanished.
Castor's concerned look, torn and teary expressions of the surviving soldiers, the salutes of those who were quick enough on the uptake to figure out what was going on…
All of that disappeared in a single instant, replaced by nothing but the sky-like blue of intensity far greater than what Leo's eyes should ever be able to survive.
'Now then, you know what to do,' Loe closed his eyes and took a deep breath, not wasting his brainpower on trying to analyze the phenomena.
He mastered five schools of different magic before coming to this world and now has reached the mastery of the sixth domain. And yet, even upon mastering the combination magic of all the different domains…
The level of spellcrafting involved in the hero summoning curse was simply too great for Leo to even attempt to unveil it.
If he and his magic could compare to a mighty, masterful smith capable of chain-producing legendary-class weapons…
Then this particular curse was a masterpiece of a legendary goldsmith who spent his entire life and all of his skills to craft just one, exquisite piece of divine-rank jewelry.
'Calm down.'
'Take a deep breath.'
'Close your eyes, not to let the natural light blind you.'
'Stay calm.'
Leo knew the procedure by heart.
All the steps he had to make during the process of summoning to best prepare for whatever awaited him on the other side.
And with all of his mystical might restrained to the very depths of his soul, with his body reverting to how it should be precisely seven years after he was first summoned…
Leo felt the ground under his feet once more, prompting him to slowly pry his eyes open and take a slow, restrained look around.
'Wait, why is it all so damn familiar?'
A dog park with a bunch of children playing around with their pets. A bunch of municipal benches on which the adults sat, talking with their friends while looking over their wards. A dimmed-out light of the sun, obstructed by the invisible screen of smoke and pollution. A thousand different noises of the city blended into a mix that Leo's brain instinctively filtered out.
It was all so familiar… and yet, strangely foreign.
And right as Leo just stood there, baffled by the sights he never expected to see again, a ten-year-old-or-so girl suddenly approached…
Only to reach out in an attempt to bestow upon him…
An animal-shaped balloon.
"Here," the girl said with a great determination painted all over her innocent, childish face. "You are sad, so take this and don't be sad anymore!"
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