CHAPTER 108. The One Who Insulted the Leech
Xenion Academy.
After finishing dinner, Chenbi sat in the first-year student dining hall’s first-floor cafeteria, writing a letter.
To my friend Aster, who went far away. This is already the eighteenth letter.
Scratch, scratch.
The nib scraped across paper. Feeling that sensation, Chenbi smiled gently.
“It’s already… the eighteenth.”
After Aster left—
he started writing these letters about ten days later.
Letters he began to write to find peace of mind.
Before he wrote the first letter—those ten days before that were like jewels.
No. They were like hell.
The day you left with only a slip of paper behind, my hope collapsed.
You know too, don’t you? How much I waited for midterms to end. How much I pictured the day I’d be freed from Demian.
But before I could even properly savor that freedom, Aster left. How can the world be this indifferent?
If there were a sky—if there were a heaven—then it couldn’t be like this.
“No, that f**king Aster bastard… Ahem. Aster—if you have even a shred of conscience…”
He couldn’t.
He shouldn’t.
Suddenly—
anger surged.
“…Hoo.”
Chenbi pressed the flame down. Once again, a gentle smile settled onto his face.
Meanwhile, the 4th Base Camp.
Thud.
“You little bastard… not even listening when people talk.”
Shine casually caught Aster’s fist, then glared with eyes wide.
For a moment.
“Oh? You’re grabbing? You’re grabbing?”
“Your condition isn’t normal, is it?”
Shine forced down the anger that had spiked up. A victorious smile formed on her face.
“I’ve dreamed of a day like this. Someday, just once, I wanted to beat the hell out of you.”
Honestly, she’d even thought this.
I don’t know where you went, but I hoped you’d meet your match there and get beaten properly.
Well… it’s not like you’re the type to go somewhere and get beaten up. But still—what if…
Smack!
With a solid impact sound, Aster’s head snapped back. A straight punch that nailed his nose dead-on.
But Aster didn’t stay still either.
“How’s my fist—gak!”
Aster charged and shoved Shine back. In the next instant, the two tangled bodies slammed together in front of the lodging.
Aster looked at Shine as she stepped back and grinned.
“You dog-like bastard, how dare—urk!”
Thud!
This time it was his solar plexus.
“No matter how well you punch, do you really think you can beat me in a fistfight?”
Thud, crash!
Shine swept Aster’s legs, dropped him, then climbed on top of him.
If there’s a chance…
Smack, smack.
Each time her left and right arms moved, Aster’s face snapped side to side.
I want you to get hit until you see stars.
“F**king….”
My vision spins.
Where the hell did this one come from? She punches like it’s nothing. If her mount position were sloppy, I could shake her off instantly, but her core balance is ridiculous.
Like an experienced rider who’s been on horseback all her life—she keeps perfect balance.
But I don’t actually want you to get hurt. We were friends, weren’t we?
What kind of friend wants their friend to get hit?
“I dreamed of a day like this. I wished for it more than anything.”
Shine smiled down at Aster like a mischievous kid.
With the mask, the impact feels weaker. But that also means she can hit without worrying.
Part of her wanted to rip the mask off, but she didn’t cross that line.
Instead—
Boom! Boom!
With her fingers interlaced, Shine von Lehmann slammed her forehead down hard.
Aster’s head bounced—thump, thump—like it was a rubber ball. Blood burst from his nose, soaking the inside of the mask.
Are you doing well?
“You—like this!”
Boom!
“You kept—!”
Boom!
“Banging my head—!”
Boom!
I hope you’ve been doing well.
It truly felt like dying.
Maybe luckily, maybe unluckily, the Sakwol Token was so sturdy it didn’t break even through all of that.
Just the back of my head hurts a bit.
“There has to be a way.”
Aster stared up at Shine with eyes wide.
He could’ve escaped easily by using magic power, but if the other side wasn’t using magic power, how could he be the one to use it?
At this point it was pride.
To be honest, right now… I’m doing fine.
Demian is… a lot, a lot… hard to handle, but I’ve gotten used to even that now.
Oh, right—do you know?
“Bastard, do you understand how I felt now?”
Shine stopped her fists, breathing hard.
Shine’s condition wasn’t normal either.
A body that had become a vampire—somehow the muscle shape was ideal, but the stamina didn’t follow.
All show, no substance.
So she was starting to run out of strength.
“Damn body.”
But Shine hid those thoughts thoroughly and relaxed as if she had plenty of room.
Aster didn’t miss that gap.
“I’d like to teach you more of a lesson, but I’ll forgive you. After all, we—ahk!”
Shhhhk!
The instant Shine loosened the knee pinning his arm, Aster threw sand!
Shine covered her eyes. Her posture broke.
Now it was Aster’s turn.
The world is beautiful.
Smack!
Head met head.
Shine’s head snapped back, blood spraying.
Red blood drew dotted lines across the air.
Whip—thud!
The position flipped.
“You deceitful bastard, fighting dirty—!”
“Do you know what a leech is?”
He pinned Shine’s forearms with both knees and gripped her shoulders hard.
Aster’s boiling eyes. Shine was about to spit out a curse—
Boom!
A headbutt.
Boom!
Another headbutt.
I didn’t realize it before, but the world is beautiful. What isn’t beautiful is that Demian bastard…
Scribble, scribble. A horizontal line drawn over the word “bastard.”
What isn’t beautiful isn’t Demian—it’s my heart when I look at Demian.
“If you were the leech!”
Boom!
“Don’t call it dirty—!”
Boom!
“You spat blood in my face—ahk!”
“Are you satisfied, you little bastard?”
Shine blew blood into Aster’s face.
Blood seeped into the gaps of the mask, but Aster couldn’t take the mask off. If he could at least wipe it, it would be better.
“I’ll take it back now—gak!”
Whip—thud.
Shine cleverly shook off the arm restraint.
But Aster didn’t stay still either.
He’d thrown dirt in her face.
Even looking at the same thing, one person’s heart is at peace, and another’s isn’t.
So what’s truly not at peace?
Isn’t it the heart of the one looking?
After that, it was a mud-wrestling brawl.
Look at lotus flowers—don’t they bloom in mud?
Aster and Shine. A grand dogfight created by the two of them.
But there was no lotus.
I realized something, actually.
When I realized it, something… clicked, you know?
That’s why I ended up writing these eighteen letters.
My counseling professor said this is the most important time. So I should stabilize my mind.
Until the mental image that’s rippled by enlightenment becomes stable, I should gather myself.
They said writing is good. So I tried it—and it really works.
Chenbi smiled gently and closed his eyes.
After a moment of savoring the world, Chenbi began writing again.
The world is beautiful. Can’t you see it? That cluster of stars glittering in the sky.
He couldn’t see it. Because his eyes weren’t seeing.
But he could see the stars.
Flash! Flash!
The two of them grabbed each other by the collar and—one punch, one punch—drove their fists down with complete sincerity!
Can’t you hear it? That beautiful sound of insects in the grass.
“Mage! Dirt! Throw dirt! He’s about to open his eyes!”
When did he get here? Raileigh’s cheering voice rang at their ears.
But there was no opening.
They were punching too solidly. If he let go of the collar now, he’d be the one to get wrecked.
“Here—!”
Raileigh grabbed a handful of dirt and dumped it into Shine’s eyes.
“Gak! You little worm!”
We need to cherish these small things. We need to feel beauty.
A Great Mage and a Master Knight.
There’s nothing trivial in this world.
It was, truly, a trivial fight.
And the result was—
“You bastard! You bastard! How dare you touch the Mage!”
“Yeah, that’s it!”
Raileigh’s drunken вмешательство—his intervention.
“Aaagh!”
Crash—!
A bottle smashed into the back of Shine’s head, exploding with a loud crack as glass scattered through the air.
“Mage, recover while you can!”
“I-I am someone—!”
“Die! Die, you bastard!”
“I-I’m—aaagh!”
Shine tried again and again to prove she was herself.
But Raileigh’s kicks were merciless.
“Let me talk—!”
As Shine’s hollow scream echoed, Aster backed away, lifted his mask slightly, and rubbed his eyes.
Then he put the mask back on, and looked at the world again with a clear field of view.
“She insulted the leech. Trample her.”
“Yes, sir!”
Raileigh kicked with all his heart and soul.
Shine curled up tight, looking utterly pathetic.
Aster smiled at the sight.
The killing intent that had flared like wildfire was gone without a trace—leaving only satisfaction.
“This is the eye level between you and me.”
In truth, he’d noticed long ago.
You could tell just by trading blows. If he hadn’t, the moment Raileigh jumped in, he would’ve ridden the momentum and cut off her breathing.
“Grind her down good.”
“Yes!”
For a long time after that, solid impact sounds rang out through the 4th Base Camp.
Aster, I’m happy. Are you doing well there?
I hope you’ll be happy there too.
With that, Chenbi finished the letter.
He used a shared spell to raise a small breeze so the ink would dry, then neatly put it away.
Eighteen letters that would never be sent.
But they would never be sent.
Chenbi quietly looked up at the sky.
“……”
In Chenbi’s heart, Aster was dead.
Otherwise, he couldn’t endure it.
The stress that had reached an extreme had clearly done something to Chenbi’s thought circuits—so these were letters that could never be sent.
You can’t send a letter to someone who’s already dead.
Raileigh’s one-sided beatdown ended only after quite a long time had passed.
“Pant, pant… Mage. This one’s pretty stubborn, sir. Should I… keep going?”
Raileigh was sweating hard. How fiercely had he been hitting her? His whole body was soaked.
And instead of looking tired, he looked… weirdly excited.
“This bastard’s enjoying it.”
He was trying his hardest not to show it, but the slightly lifted corners of his mouth, the life in his eyes—more than ever.
“You noticed, didn’t you?”
Flinch.
His eyes wavered. And then he glanced at Shine sprawled on the ground, only to shudder.
Shine, beaten to a pulp, was glaring up at him with an axe-eyed stare.
“You had a lot built up?”
“No, I—uh—”
“Enough. Go wake those gentlemen over there and send them back.”
It wasn’t hard to understand.
“Tsk. People really should’ve lived with a kinder heart.”
When Shine was a Death Knight, she’d treated Raileigh like absolute trash.
He was basically the village drum.
If he said a single word, she called him a loudmouth and beat him down. If he didn’t say anything, she’d ask if he had complaints and beat him down anyway.
At least Oberon didn’t have a personality that begged for a beating—aside from being frustrating—so that was fortunate. But Raileigh was the type who could sit still and just breathe, and his face would still summon fists.
“Um, Mage… I really don’t understand what you mean…”
“Ah, enough. Just wake those gentlemen and send them off.”
“…Yes, y-yes! But I really—”
“Hey.”
Maybe he was afraid of Shine’s revenge. Raileigh tried to make excuses again and again, then finally shuffled over to Fixer.
Leaving Raileigh behind as he woke the “totems,” I dragged the sprawled-out Shine and walked deeper into the lodging.
“You… dog-like… I… I won… I definitely won….”
Was she that furious? She didn’t have the strength to lift a finger, but her eyes were vicious.
If eyes could kill, they were the kind of eyes that would kill a hundred times over.
“Yeah. Seeing this… she really is a leech.”
Her black armor had turned into a flesh-and-blood body, and she looked pretty far from the Shine von Lehmann I’d imagined…
But how could I not recognize her?
Maybe because once, our spirits were linked through the Bracelet of Subjugation.
Even without explanation, something hit me with a clear “click.”
But still—
“You… are you really the leech?”
“You deceitful bastard. Wasn’t beating me like that enough?”
Shine glared at me, seething.
“Those eyes…”
She could barely sit and pull herself together in a chair, but her spirit refused to break.
Normally I would’ve hit her a couple more times, but I stopped after only one.
“…Gak!”
“I didn’t even hit that hard.”
I flicked her forehead once and sat down across from her.
But was she that resentful about getting hit? She trembled with fury.
“I… I am Shine von Lehmann. If I’m not Shine, then who the hell is Shine….”
“No, I get that, but…”
That wasn’t my question.
Pale skin for a human. Blood-red irises. Jet-black hair—fine.
But the fangs jutting out like a beast’s weren’t normal.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“…You believe me?”
“I mean, I believe you, but….”
Her face looked somehow aggrieved. Looking at those sullen eyes, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
“…Do I need to beat her more?”
But only for a moment.
I realized there was something I still hadn’t said.
A dead person came back alive—something definitely happened. But before satisfying that curiosity, there was something I wanted to say first.
“You… don’t get cocky.”
“……”
No. Not that.
“Ahem. Ahem-hem.”
I cleared my throat and spoke again.
“G-good… good job… you got back… are you insane? Why’d you jump me?”
“What, you—”
Ah. Was I the one who jumped first?
Whatever. What did phrasing matter. As long as the feeling got across.
If it was the leech, she’d understand. Probably… probably.
And if she didn’t understand?
“I’ll kill you today for sure—gak!”
Smack!
A solid impact sound.
If she didn’t understand, helping her understand was a companion’s virtue.
