Leonardo, who was hurriedly sliding down the gentle slope, headed toward the cliff where almost no grass grew. After scanning the complex shape of human civilization spread out below the whitish clouds, he took out a portable telescope and coordinate system to confirm his target point.
'32 degrees 55 minutes South.'
Though the floating rock masses drifting around were somewhat threatening, they were spaced far enough apart that they shouldn't be much of a hindrance. After adjusting the scope and confirming the rough terrain features, he put the telescope away and took a step forward. Just as he was doing his final stretches, rotating his shoulders and arms:
"Captain–!"
An anxious call was heard from afar. Leonardo clicked his tongue and let out a small sigh.
'Did I dawdle too much?'
When he turned his head, contrary to the distance he had gauged from the sound, he saw Nero right in front of his face. He grabbed Leonardo's forearm strongly and demanded:
"Captain, were you trying to leave without telling me?"
The gripping force was terrifying enough to cause pain. Nero's breathing was rough, unlike him, probably from running in a hurry, and his eyes were fierce unlike yesterday. His face was full of hurt feelings and betrayal.
"Uh, well..."
"Oh, really! Are you going to keep doing this? When did I say I wouldn't let you go? You could at least say goodbye!"
"No, you were sleeping so soundly..."
"Then you should have woken me up! You used to pour cold water on me during missions–"
Nero seemed to notice it was an excuse and spoke through gritted teeth in a lowered voice. Meanwhile, he had diligently picked up and put on the clothes left at his bedside earlier. Instead of adding excuses like he had already woken up, Leonardo grabbed Nero's angry hand and pulled it toward himself.
"I was afraid I wouldn't want to leave you if I saw your face, that's why I tried to leave while you were sleeping."
He uttered these embarrassing words while continuously kneading Nero's palm. He didn't forget to raise his sorrowful eyelashes that had been lowered. Though it was clearly intended to escape the situation, nothing worked better on Nero than this.
"...Damn it–"
As expected, Nero's words were cut off. Annoyed at himself for being like this, he roughly brushed back his extended hair.
There was that expression again. Though he knew the Captain was deliberately acting pitiful, Nero's heart melted at the touch pressing firmly on his palm along with the sweet words. Though he glared at him with resentful eyes, he couldn't stay angry anymore.
Who could resist the warm hand that manipulated them so well while the world's greatest actor whispered pleasing words?
Seeming to notice Nero's softened stance, Leonardo smiled slightly and patted his back.
"I'm sorry, I was wrong."
"..."
"But we'll meet again soon anyway. Didn't you see the note I left?"
"How can you just leave a note without any explanation? You're always the one pretending to be busy. I'm the one who came all the way here during a really busy time."
"...Alright. I'm sorry–"
Though he thought 'What a whiner' internally, Leonardo kept apologizing while wrapping his arm around Nero's shoulders. Then he gently smoothed Nero's disheveled red hair and sharpened eyes one by one.
"Go to the station on the east side of Solia within two hours. You remember my face from yesterday, right? Disguise yourself with that and escape to Celestia. If you don't come, the gondola captain will find it strange."
"Are you really sorry?"
"Of course I'm sorry. Want me to bow my head?"
"...Never mind."
"Hey, I even put this much money in your pocket thinking of you..."
Nero ignored Leonardo who was waving his arms exaggeratedly and looked at the cliff with a sullen expression. Seeing him standing here, he could roughly guess his intentions. Nero naturally took out a thick quilted jacket from his artifact and draped it over Leonardo's shoulders.
"Are you listening to me?"
"I got it. Though it's warm around the equator, the wind is cold up in the air. Don't catch a cold unnecessarily, wear thick clothes. You get cold easily too."
Leonardo looked at Nero, who answered roughly as if he might have heard or might have let it slide, with distrustful eyes. However, he soon fiddled with the jacket Nero had put on him before slipping his arms through the armholes and properly dressing for gliding. Only after firmly zipping it up to his chin did Nero's expression somewhat relax.
He stepped back one step and asked:
"What's most precious to the Captain right now?"
At the sudden question, Leonardo raised his eyebrows. After rolling his eyes for a moment, he gave the answer that had never changed since before without hesitation:
"'Us.'"
For a moment, Nero's lips twitched against his will. He seemed unable to help the smile that spread automatically.
However, Nero quickly composed his expression and cleared the atmosphere with a fake cough.
"Ahem ahem, wrong."
"What?"
This time, while tidying the Captain's hair and clothes with his own hands, he answered:
"What the Captain should cherish most right now is himself."
At an altitude of who knows how many thousand feet, Nero slowly rolled up the quilted jacket's sleeves. The hands that had been hidden beneath were revealed. Nero caressed Leonardo's empty left middle finger.
Rummaging through his pocket, he took out the Armsilver emblem again and put his ring on that finger.
"Remember. Don't worry about other people unnecessarily, take care of yourself first. Put on some weight too."
Leonardo, who had slightly furrowed his brows similarly, stared blankly at the thick silver ring. Soon he slowly raised his eyelids.
"...Why the ring again?"
"I don't know if it's just my feeling, but somehow when you have this, we end up meeting. Keep it until we meet next time. If it gets even a single scratch, I won't let it go."
Nero made his threat while preciously folding Leonardo's fingers to make a fist. Originally it had fit perfectly on the middle finger, but it rattled as if it might fall off, perhaps because his fingers had gotten thinner too. Leonardo quietly looked down at his fist that felt the weight and chuckled at the impossible warning.
On one hand, he found Nero cute for expressing his wish for him not to get involved in dangerous matters in this way. He thought about rubbing his cheek, but the person in question probably wouldn't like that.
"Hey, what's this about not letting it go to your older brother?"
"It's just a saying, are you going to nitpick everything? Like an old man? Even though I saved you."
"Ah, right."
Leonardo laughed and patted Nero's back.
"Right. I'll keep it well as an old man, you brat."
"Take better care of yourself too. Don't faint while falling. Is your mana okay now?"
"It's fine, it's fine. My ears are going to bleed."
He used to be the one nagging all the time, but their positions had reversed in just a few years. Though Leonardo scrunched his eyes, he smiled as if he didn't mind. Finally, he removed his hand from Nero's waist and turned his body toward the cliff.
"Send my regards to the kids. They'll worry a lot."
"If you know that, show your face more often. Can't I bring one or two more here?"
Nero said while waving the note and bills from his pocket. Leonardo half-turned his head and answered:
"If it seems okay depending on the situation... Ah, ask Taylor. She's good at judging those things."
Then he lowered his posture and prepared to jump by testing the ground. There was no surer way to erase his tracks in Celestia than this.
Having completed all preparations, Leonardo briefly raised his head to stare at the sunlit sky above. He intentionally contracted his pupils by exposing his eyes to parallel light rays. It was a method often used in shooting, as it made vision clearer and reduced glare, making it easier to aim at targets clearly.
After blinking his eyes several times, Leonardo murmured to the person behind who gave no answer:
"Nero, thank you."
He deliberately didn't look back. Because if he saw his face, he really wouldn't want to part.
Finally, he ran toward the void, stepping on the cliff edge while avoiding the few grass roots that had managed to grow there. Lest his mind change, he moved at a speed that was almost too much to handle.
It didn't take long for his body, which had kicked off from the ground, to plunge headfirst. Nero hurriedly moved to the edge of the cliff, following Leonardo who had left the ground in an instant. Standing on top of the Captain's last footprint, he couldn't take his eyes off the receding figure.
Though he had done high-altitude descent training quite often, he didn't know why it always made his heart clench. After counting in his mind, when Leonardo passed the last visible rock, Nero finally let out a sigh.
The golden hair that had caught attention even in broad daylight became a small dot and quickly disappeared from view. He was a bad person who wouldn't even show his face until the end. But knowing the heart with which he had left, Nero deliberately maintained a calm expression.
Soon he clenched his right hand into a fist and firmly placed it against his left chest.
"I wish you luck, Captain."
The wind carrying fresh light passed by Nero and headed leisurely southward.
***
Leonardo, who had done a free fall from 5,000 feet, increased his propulsion by emitting heat from his back and feet. Within Celestia's magnetic field orbit, he had to descend downward using mana as if going against gravity. Though things didn't exactly float, they didn't fall straight down like common sense would dictate either.
However, this process was incredibly difficult. Even moving his limbs was arduous, like struggling while being swept away by rapids. Moreover, he had to avoid rocks floating through the magnetic field's resistance. Going against the flow of the world like this required more courage and strength than one might think.
The magnetic field's influence would cut off as if divided into layers after passing certain sections, and at this point one truly entered a state of falling, occasionally leading to deaths from carelessness. Leonardo, who had been descending without rest while finding this subtle boundary line, could finally entrust himself to gravity when he reached the 500m point at a 45-degree diagonal from Solia.
Gravity was incomparable to a mere human crossing the sky using mana. The earth's pull was threatening enough that one could barely open their eyes, and even the smallest gaps were penetrated by wind making the whole body flutter.
But Leonardo quite enjoyed this moment of being in the air without using any mana. Sometimes the thrill made his spine tingle enough to numb his brain.
Three years ago, when he had lost everything, perhaps it was because moments of deviation like this existed that he had been able to come to his senses somewhat.
When gliding from high places carrying all sins, the passing air felt like it cleanly washed away his polluted body and mind. Even when he had wanted to crash his head into the gradually clearing buildings and rivers, it was thanks to these moments closest to death's boundary that he had held onto his will to live. Ironically.
When the altitude dropped below 300m, Leonardo turned toward the field he had spotted earlier. Falling at a speed incomparable to before, he perfectly hid even his landing traces by using teleport just before touching the ground.
After quickly crossing the wasteland and swamps that had formed when the floating island rose, he encountered two gate-like barriers and passed through them with fake IDs. Once entering the end gate with no administrator like that, a lawless zone with virtually no autonomous forces unfolded.
One of the top five slums and pleasure quarters in Raina Logia, it was called Dooms Ark from the outside and Libertas from the inside.
The ark of doom and freedom. Though they seemed like they could never coexist, surprisingly, the two coexisted here. It was a different kind of area from Barmot attached near Fidele territory. In other words, it was on a different dimension from just a den of thugs rolling around on the streets.
While Barmot had formed a large slum purely through numbers, Libertas was a place where even more deeply bottom-dwelling guys had gathered.
Free the oppressed!
Red spray paint scrawled on wet concrete greeted travelers as soon as they passed through the end gate. That bold handwriting and proud slogan gave a glimpse into their spirit.
Leonardo briefly stopped at the scenery he hadn't seen in a long time. He removed his hood and looked up at the sky that was like his future, where acrid smoke formed smog.
Though it was still bright midday, it felt strangely shaded. This was probably because there wasn't a single spot where light entered the illegal extensions lined up on both sides like a canyon. Iron bars were attached to all the old and gloomy low-rise buildings. He didn't know what they were meant to protect against.
Though there were no signs of life, people lived there too. They were people who found night more beautiful than day.
Occasionally, people who visited the pleasure quarter during broad daylight would flee after getting an eerie feeling from the seemingly empty city. He had just seen two outsiders who had been lingering at the entrance of Libertas leaving.
Having wasted some time waiting to avoid encountering them, Leonardo moved his steps more busily than usual.
He stepped on the damp and sticky ground that clung to his shoe soles and smoothly seeped into the middle of downtown. Along the way, a small white flutter came and went in his gray field of vision, catching his attention.
Rolling his eyes, Leonardo extended his palm forward and asked:
"Did you come to meet me?"
The white butterfly that had been wandering around naturally landed on his fingertip. As if glad to see him, it fluttered its wings several times before taking flight again. It led the way, drawing figure eights in the air as if saying it would guide him.
"Let's go."
Leonardo also increased his pace, following the butterfly entering the alley. Though he wore a smile on his lips, the gravity in his golden eyes was quite discordant.