"Auch!" Leynel moaned.
He received no physical attacks that harmed him. Yet, realizing what Leon meant with his words brought upon him the kind of mental attack that only a fellow man could understand.
"Urgh..." the officer shrugged violently as if trying to shake the image off his mind. "I guess I know why you went to fix the roof rather than finishing your business," he added, shrugging yet again.
"Yeah," Leon muttered, not sure what kind of response he should've given.
"Well," Leynel sighed, "I guess I'll be off then."
The officer was just about to turn around and leave when Sarah suddenly moved up to him while keeping her eyes down on the ground.
"I..." Sarah hesitated, escaping with her eyes to the side, while the blush on her cheeks intensified. "I-I hope you could keep what you learned here to yourself... sir," she requested in a shaky voice.
'She isn't terrified of him at all?' Leon noticed a small detail in the girl's expression. 'She is faking her fear, that's pretty obvious after I saw how she acted around me when we first met,' he thought, taking note of this unexpected development.
"He came here but will soon leave," Leynel then muttered, turning his eyes towards Leon's face for a second before moving them back to the girl's wary expression. "And you will be left with all the villagers eager to spread rumors and treat you worse because of these short few days," he explained the situation even though no one asked him to. "Don't worry, little one," Leynel then said, his voice turning extremely warm while a sad smile blossomed on his lips.
The officer even went as far as to take a step forward, lower his torch-holding hand and reach out with his right only to rest it on the girl's head.
"Don't worry," he then said. "My lips are sealed. I do not find it amusing to babble about things that upon reaching the ears of the villagers could make them bully you," he reassured the girl before retracting his hand and turning around on the spot. "That's all I had to do here."
Leynel raised his hand only to walk off towards his soldiers and then take a turn before leaving in the general direction of where the explosion happened.
"It all worked out," Leon muttered silently under his nose. "You did well," he then said as he turned towards the girl. "Extremely well," he praised Sarah only to raise his hand and pat her head in a strange fit of hidden jealousy.
'It's as if I'm trying to get one over him,' he thought while his fingers run through the girl's hair.
Yet, as if Leon didn't have enough surprises for one, the girl didn't escape from his touch.
She didn't do so when Leynel rustled her hair because she was playing her role. But now...?
Rather than trying to escape Leon's touch, she actually closed her eyes and tilted her head down, to make it easier for him to pat her! And to top it all off, a small, satisfied smile grew up on her lips.
'Damn,' Leon cursed under his breath, retracting his hand before the situation would progress too much.
"Right, I still need to talk to you about something," Leon said, escaping from the situation he wasn't fully comfortable with only to head right back to the house, ignoring all the straw that his shockwave kicked off its roof.
"Sure thing," Sarah chirped only to follow after the man with a joyful expression on her face.
The two of them went inside. Leon sat down on the edge of the bed while the girl fell to her knees and sat down on her heels, opting to put herself below the bloodmancer rather than sitting on the same level as him.
"This might creep into the topics you are not comfortable with..." Leon started, averting his eyes as shame filled his soul.
He was about to break his taboo of not forcing the girl to talk about the topics she didn't want to, after all.
"Just ask away," Sarah replied, still keeping up her bright smile while looking straight at Leon's face with a strange fire burning behind her eyes.
Leon took a deep breath, reading himself for what could pretty much become a disaster.
"It might end up being related to what you said before about your bloodline," he announced, only to see the blood flow down from the girl's face as Sarah fully tensed up.
Yet, this change lasted for only a second before the girl shook her head and looked at Leon's face again.
This time, however, her eyes were filled with determination.
"Ask away," she repeated herself.
"Tell me," Leon said, accepting the girl's resolve. "When you looked into that crimson crystal," Leon started, his eyes focusing as he held up his breath. "What did you see?"