Present :
Leon exhaled a long breath as he finished recounting the memory — not as a reader recounting a charactor, but as a witness revisiting a tragedy even he didn't fully enjoy reading it.
The forest was silent.
Nox hovered mid-air, tiny arms crossed, face torn between annoyance and sympathy — as if even a former Demon Emperor wasn't sure how to react to that kind of childhood.
Kylus had gone pale long before Leon finished speaking.He was completely shocked.He did not understand how someone he met just hours ago knew his past.
His lips parted, voice trembling between outrage and disbelief.
"H-How… how do you know my past…?"
Leon didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he folded his arms behind his back and began speaking.
"After you ran away from Silvaris," Leon began, tone softer than before, "You slowly understood your own power. The very thing you believed cursed… turned out to be a lens no one else possessed."
Kylus froze — it was like hearing someone narrate a diary he'd never written.
"He learned that those eyes could pierce through anything," Leon continued, "and see the essence — the core, the mana, the truth of matter. If something lived, he could see its vitality. If something was forged, he could see its impurities. And if something was magical…"
Leon snapped his fingers.
"…he could see the very flow that sustained it.He can see anything that has an source of energy or life. "
Nox blinked, wings twitching in astonishment. " This ability...It's beyond what an mortal should possess..." Nox said curiosity lies in Nox's words.
" practically ancient artifact level perception."
Leon nodded as if that was the obvious conclusion.
"And the more mana-rich the environment," he went on,
"the faster his eyes adapted. They drank mana in naturally, devouring it from the world around him. Sight sharpened, perception deepened, precision became law.And the amount of mana inside him increased and formed an mana core."
He pointed lazily at Kylus's bow, discarded in the dirt.
"It was only matter of time before he became the sharpest shot in Arthis. So he became a freelancer, a mercenary… and eventually, a master archer."
"And that," he concluded, "is the story of Kylus El Lysandreil — illegitimate heir, failed spirit contractor, and current idiot archer who shot a meteor arrow at a random castle for money."
Nox slapped a palm to his tiny forehead.
"Leon," he hissed, "you can't just dump a heartbreaking, narrative and then insult him in the same breath!"
Kylus stared — not angry, not defensive — but rattled. As if each sentence forced him to relive years he had tried to bury.
"You—" he swallowed hard, voice unsteady, "how can you possibly know all of that…?"
The forest wind answered for Leon — whispering through branches, stirring leaves around Kylus's restrained body.
Leon opened his mouth to reply—
—but Felix moved first.
The flame swordsman crouched down, lowering himself to eye level with the bound elf.
Kylus stiffened instantly, panic shooting through him.
"Wh-What do you want!?" he blurted, struggling against the ropes.
Felix stared for a moment, expression unreadable… then gently raised a hand and patted Kylus on the head.
"Sorry for beating you earlier," he said, voice oddly genuine.
Kylus froze mid-breath, eyes wide.
"…Huh?"
Nox blinked twice.
"…What?"
Leon hid a grin behind his hand.
Kylus stuttered, "W-Why are you apologizing!? You nearly killed me!"
Felix tilted his head as if thinking deeply, then nodded. "True. But you hit the castle first, so it was fair."
"That's not— that's—!" Kylus sputtered, brain breaking in three directions at once.
Nox turned slowly to Leon.
"Why is this happening?"
Leon shrugged. "Because they're similar."
"Felix and Kylus," he said, "aren't as different as they look."
Felix tilted his head, brows knitting. Kylus blinked back at him, still processing everything Leon had said.
Leon went on, voice softer now:
"Felix lost his family… his name… his place in the world. He ran. He fought. He survived as a mercenary long before he should've ever held a blade.
Not because he wanted strength, but because strength was the only thing that allowed him to keep living."
Felix said nothing, but his fingers curled unconsciously around the hilt of his sword —
A habit born from years of needing to be prepared.
"And Kylus," Leon added, turning his gaze to the elf,
"lost something different. Not a house on fire or a bloodline slain. He lost acceptance. He lost belonging. He lost the right to stand among his own people."
Kylus stiffened, breath catching as old emotions crept up despite himself.
Leon didn't push pity — only truth.
"You ran from your home because staying meant hurting the people you cared about. Felix ran because staying meant dying. Two choices, from two different worlds… but they were made for the same reason."
"Survival," Nox murmured, summarizing with a single word that cut clean through the quiet.
Leon nodded. "Exactly."
The forest didn't interrupt. Even the leaves seemed to still for a moment.
Leon smiled faintly. "The world only looks easy until you step into it."
He smiled, satisfied.
"So yes. Both of you shared the same story foundation. A house lost. A road taken. Too much hardship for someone too young. And a ridiculous journey afterward."
for a brief second — past titles, past nations, past curses and flames — they were not an archer and a swordsman, not an elf and a human, not enemies nor captor and captive.
Just two boys who had lived when they weren't meant to.
Leon's shoulders tensed slightly.
Because he knew their emotion— he didn't just listen, he understood.
He remembered his past life,Not as Leon Von Arcblade,but Leon Maxwell.
He thought of his past life's orphanage.
The cramped rooms.
The constant fear and how he was always tormented in the orphanage,before he ran away from there.
How running away felt like choosing the world's claws over the hands that should have protected him.
Yet somehow, that was still the better choice.
"…Guess we're not that different," Leon finally muttered, almost to himself.
"Most people think running away is cowardly. But sometimes it means you were brave enough to stop letting others decide your life." Said Leon.
Three different pasts.
Three different roads.
Yet all of them had once run from something — and survived enough to stand here now.
Leon exhaled, light but steady.
"…Funny. We all ran away. And somehow ended up running together."
Leon stepped forward, closing the distance between them with quiet certainty.
Kylus looked up, puzzled by the sudden intensity in Leon's eyes.
"Kylus…" Leon began.
His voice wasn't loud — but it carried the weight of a decision already made.
"Would you wish to become my subordinate?"
Kylus froze, eyes widening, completely unprepared for those words.
For a moment he actually forgot to breathe.
Leon didn't pause.
"Kylus… you weren't born to spend the rest of your life in the shadows pretending the world has no place for you."
His tone wasn't pity — it was recognition.
Kylus swallowed, stunned. "You… what are you talking about?"
Leon continued, steady and unwavering.
"You tried to run away from the world. I get it. Felix gets it. Even I get it."
He pointed lightly at his own chest. "But running won't erase who you are."
Kylus opened his mouth to argue, but Leon cut him off:
"You are someone worth accepting."
Leon continued."You are Someone who should stand in front of others — not hide behind their expectations."
Leon's voice was almost commanding now.
"And if the world refuses to accept you… then I will make it accept you."
Felix blinked, staring at Leon as if hearing him for the first time.
Leon took a step even closer.
"Even If the whole Silvaris Empire is against you, i will be beside you ."
Kylus clenched his fists. His lips trembled slightly — not out of fear, but out of being seen.
Leon added, quieter but sharper:
"You ran because nobody will Accept you.But I will."
Kylus's eyes turned wide open.it was the first time someone said to him that they will accept him.
Leon still did not finish.
"If I'm the only one who sees your value right now… that's enough."
Nox sees Leon astonished.The brat who always fought with him,a brat who just thought of reaching his goal,Thinking about another person.
Nox, who had been floating lazily at Leon's side, stopped himself mid-air.
For as long as Nox had known him, Leon was the brat who charged forward on instinct — who chased his goals like a wildfire with no time to look back.
Even when Leon planned, it was always about his path, his revenge, his future.
But now…
Now Leon was standing there for Kylus — a boy he could have killed,Destroyed, or simply walked past.
Nox's tiny wings fluttered once, the wind behind them whispering.
It felt… strange.
"To think…" Nox murmured to himself, barely audible, "that the brat who never cared what others felt… would speak for someone else."
He wasn't mocking.
He wasn't joking.
He was genuinely astonished.
Has he grown? Nox wondered.
He knew Leon was a irregular person who read the whole world in a book.And got reincernated.
But still the thought of a brat like him actually learning to carry someone other than himself made Nox astonished.
"Human growth is always unexpected," he whispered, watching Leon with new interest.
But Leon unaware still continued to talk with Kylus.
" Even if you are cursed,Even if the Elves reject you,I...I would make the whole world accept you.And that you get accepted by the very Silvaris which made you run."
Those lines hit Kylus harder than he expected.
Leon extended his hand, not arrogantly but firmly.
"So I'll ask again" Leon asked stretching his hand.
"Will you stay here doing nothing? Or will you follow me — and let me help you claim the acceptance you were denied?"
The forest wind moved between them, but Kylus didn't notice.
For a boy who had once fled everything… this was the first time someone asked him to step forward instead.
Kylus stared at Leon for a long time—too long.
Felix and Nox said nothing. Even the wind refused to interrupt.
Then Kylus did something none of them expected.
He smiled.
Not out of spite.
Not out of arrogance.
But with a warmth that felt… fragile. A smile born from a boy who had never been given a reason to hope.
His throat trembled as tears gathered—silent and shimmering—until they overflowed.
Kylus wiped them once, but more came.
"If you keep the promise…" his voice cracked, "…then I would be more than willing to serve you."
He looked up at Leon, the fear in his eyes paling beneath something new—belief.
"Do you think…" Kylus swallowed, "…you can make them accept me?"
Leon didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
That one word struck harder than any oath, any battle, any command.
Kylus' breath shuddered. The tears that fell now were not those of a cursed child, but of someone being seen for the first time.
"Then…"
His head bowed,while he was still tied up.
He took a deep breath.
"I, Kylus El Lysandreil, swear loyalty to Lord LEON VON ARCBLADE!."