"What the hell happened here?!" Leynel asked out loud.
The sympathy and kindness that Leon could see on the officer's face during most of their first meeting were now nowhere to be seen, replaced by cold alertness.
"You tell me," Leon replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Also, keep that fire away, would ya?" he then suggested, pushing his left hand out as if to shove the man's torch away. "There is dried-out straw all over the place. A moment of carelessness and you will put my house to a torch," he pointed out, cautiously taking a step back while twisting his body to keep the stack of straw under his arm even further away from the potential fire hazard.
"Ah, sorry," Leynel uttered, caught completely off guard by Leon's sudden scold. He then quickly shook his head. "No, that's not it," he muttered only to raise his eyes back on the bloodmancer. "Do you want to tell me you have nothing to do with the explosion from before?"
"Explosion?" Leon raised his eyes in the best portrayal of surprise he could make his face into. "I saw no fires at all, though?"
"Oh, my bad," Leynel reflexively apologized when Leon pointed out his mistake. "Wait, fuck, no!" he then shouted, the slight annoyance turning into slight fury when he realized he got gotten twice in a row in an extremely similar manner. "What the hell was that, then?!"
"Why do you ask me?" Leon countered, dropping the bit of straw from under his arm only to then cross his arms over his chest. "We were minding..." his words suddenly ceased. "Cough, I was minding my own business when the shockwave nearly ripped our home to shreds," he said, intentionally mixing pronouns only to instantly reflect on this apparent mistake.
"..." Leynel didn't push with his questions. He stared down at Leon's face, refusing to move his eyes away from Leon's pupils.
Still, without a word, Leynel moved forward. He didn't confront Leon, though, but moved past him instead only to bring his torch closer to Sarah's face.
"Hai!" the squeaked and jumped up a little when placed under the scrutiny of the officer's vigilant eyes. She then looked the man in the face only to instantly turn her eyes away and then follow it up by averting her face slightly to the side.
Leynel moved the torch even closer to the girl's face...
"That's quite enough," Leon informed in a cold voice, his left hand landing above Leynel's and stopping the torch in its place only to move it away. His right hand was moved up, resting down on the side of his waist, just an inch away from the handle of the very same sword that the village elder brought to him during the scene at the road.
"I see..." Leynel muttered, properly pulling the torch away after inspecting the blush on the girl's cheeks. He then turned around to face Leon only to follow it up by bowing his head. "I do apologize. It seems like I was too hasty with my suspicions," he said, keeping his bow while speaking. The officer straightened his back and looked at Leon only to then tilt his head to the side while a small smirk appeared on his lips. "Didn't you claim you had no intention of putting your hands on her, though?"
'And that's how you deal with intelligent people,' Leon thought, holding back a sigh that welled up in his soul. It wasn't the first time and it likely wasn't the last time when he would employ this extremely simple method of fooling others. 'Just give them some clues to make them believe they discovered the truth on their own.'
"That was before she threw herself at me back on the road," Leon explained, further reinforcing the obvious misunderstanding of the officer. "I refused her before because I detest rape and forced intimacy... No," Leon shook his head, "You can't call it intimacy if it's forced. Forced sex," he changed his wording, just to build up even more of the persona he created for the sake of both the villagers and the soldiers from the nearby camp.
Obviously, parts of what he was saying were true. A lie had to be rooted in some truth to work properly, after all.
"That makes sense..." Leynel mused, only to shake his head and step away, finally leaving Sarah's and Leon's personal space. "Do you have any idea what happened here, then?" the officer asked, finally taking on the approach that Leon wanted him to.
"Wait, is it something rare in those parts of the world?" Leon then asked, opening his eyes a little wider than usual. He then took a slow, relaxed breath before looking in a direction just a bit off from where the shockwave actually came from. "I guess some sort of monster or animal found an artifact of sorts. Handling those roughly can easily lead to their magic discharging," he elaborated on the story he came up with while returning from the scene with the girl a moment earlier.
"I suddenly lost interest in the place that you came from..." Leynel muttered, only to shake his head and then raise his eyes back on Leon's face. "But that's just your guess. Can you tell me what actually happened? Finding out the reason to protect the kingdom's people is my job, after all."
"I could..." Leon replied only to turn his eyes towards the villagers that stood in the back. He then crossed his arms over his chest again before staring in the same direction while putting a displeased expression on his face.
"I get it," Leynel said. He then turned around and waved his torch sideways. "All of you, disperse! There is nothing for you to see here!"
The officer's words worked like a charm. And within a single minute, only Leon, Sarah, Leynel himself, and then his soldiers remained in place, with the latter taking the hint and retreating outside of the range of Leon's whispers.
"We were... minding our own business when I felt the air tensing up," Leon revealed, describing the exact phenomena that would precede the passing of a shockwave. "I'm kinda used to it, so I rolled with Sarah off the bed before pressing her to the ground. Next thing I knew, I felt as if a massive storm passed right above me," Leon pumped out the details of the story he carefully crafted for Leynel to believe in. "And damn," Leon then released a heavy sigh. "You have no idea how much of a close call it was..."
"Close call?" Leynel leaned his head to the side, unable to understand Leon's suggestion.
Bloodmancer only sighed. He then bent down before picking up a single strand of straw from the ground. He then brought it up to Leynel's eye level... Only to pinch it with two fingers at both of its ends before snapping the thing in half.