A mysterious breeze swept out from his mouth and nose, carrying a fragrant smoke with it, dispersing the air in front of Leon under the slight disturbance of Magic Power.
The Magic Element within his body stimulated his slumbering brain.
... "Wake up."
The touch of the voice in his heart seemed to reach deep into his spirit.
Leon was startled and opened his eyes.
In the darkness, only a few strands of Moonlight seeped through the broken attic into the third floor.
Before his groggy brain could fully awaken, the sudden approach of candlelight set off alarms in Leon's heart.
The footsteps on the wooden floor were faint, but still very distinct in the quiet night.
A thief?
Leon half-squinted without showing any reaction, quietly waiting for the uninvited visitor to approach.
The intruder, growing bolder, reached out his right hand in the darkness, attempting to grab the treasure sword held in Leon's embrace.
Leon suddenly erupted.
With his right hand like an iron clamp, he seized the intruder's wrist and violently dragged him to the floor.
"What!?"
The intruder exclaimed, and the candlestick rolled out of balance and extinguished.
With his left hand, Leon struck out, grabbing the back of the intruder's collar. He performed the ground technique shown by the Corpse Demon Knight earlier, forcefully flipping the intruder to the side and pressing down on his lower back with his body.
"Lokhak! Azeryan! Wake up!"
As he shouted to awaken his companions, he wrestled with the intruder's arms, pinning the struggling figure to the ground.
His cries were loud, but the two deeply asleep companions showed no sign of awakening, alarming Leon.
The restrained Boris frantically struggled, "Damn it, how can you be fine!?"
Leon found it difficult to fully pin him down, so he let go and grabbed the long sword beside him, rolling up to stand.
He drew the sword blade as he stood.
Boris hadn't managed to stand up fully when he felt the cold edge press against his neck.
"Move again and I'll decapitate you."
Leon's chilling words issued a warning.
The sharp blade had already caused a wound on Boris's neck, the blood immediately staining the blade red. The intense pain and fear made Boris break into cold sweats, quickly halting his struggle and begging, "Wait... wait a moment! It hurts, it hurts... don't kill me, don't kill me!..."
Boris, terrified, raised his hands in surrender, afraid that the escaped slave youth would really strike.
Leon tilted his head, and with the dim Moonlight, he finally saw the other person, a cloth mask covering his face.
Leon leaned the sword firmly against the other's throat, removed the short sword from his waist, and then pulled off the cloth from his face, recognizing him as the young village thug who had attempted to rob him before.
"You really have the nerve, wanting to test my sword with your life?" Leon cursed angrily.
Glancing at his still unconscious companions on the floor, Leon suddenly felt a murderous intent rising.
"Lokhak!? Azeryan!?"
He called out again, but still, neither of his companions responded.
Enraged, Leon glared at the bastard in front of him and kicked him with all his might in the stomach.
The young thug, kicked violently by the furious youth, vomited in agony, his face contorted with pain as he collapsed to the ground, retching.
"Damn mongrel." Stepping forward, Leon grabbed the guy's hair with his left hand, positioning the sword sideways across his neck just like beheading a chicken.
Despite having overcome many obstacles, was he going to be capsized by this worthless trash today?!
"What have you done? Why can't my friends be awakened? Give your last explanation, and don't exhaust my patience."
Leon gripped the sword handle tightly. If the answer was the worst possible, he would make this scum suffer unbearably.
Boris was so scared he was nearly wetting himself, repeatedly crying out his innocence.
"They've just passed out! They're just knocked out! They're fine! I swear, I swear!"
"How do we wake them up!" Leon thundered.
"Just wait a while! Fifteen minutes, no no, thirty minutes! Just a while! They'll naturally wake up; the sedative won't harm their lives! Really, don't kill me! The sword, move the sword away! Ahhh—!!!" Boris screamed like a slaughtered pig.
Hearing this, Leon slightly eased his murderous intent.
"I'll wait with you for a while. If they don't wake up eventually, I guarantee I'll skin you alive as promised..." Leon watched him coldly, as if looking at a dead man.
Boris trembled like a leaf, not daring to make another sound, merely nodding subserviently.
Why? Why had it not affected him? Boris cursed the deceitful medicine seller in his heart, but also did not understand, since the drug had worked on everyone in the village in the tests.
How was it that today, of all days, it had no effect on this youth...
But it clearly worked on the other two!?
Clutching his neck as the sword blade cut into his skin, Boris had never wished for time to pass more quickly in his life.
Leon intermittently called out to his unconscious comrades impatiently, and each unresponded shout made Boris panic and beg for mercy.
It had indeed been over ten minutes before Lokhak and Azeryan finally woke up at Leon's calls.
Using the moonlight, the two were startled by the scene before them and quickly crawled out of their sleeping bags.
"What's going on?"
They drew their weapons and surrounded the area.
Seeing that his companions were actually fine, Leon finally breathed a sigh of relief after a scare.
"This guy, I don't know how he got in, he used a sedative on you guys, trying to steal our swords. Luckily, I was unaffected." Leon explained simply as he stepped on Boris, pinning him to the ground.
It sounded trivial, but Lokhak and Azeryan couldn't help but get chills down their spines.
"Damn it, I almost fell for this guy's trick... Leon, I say we should just kill him; we're leaving during the day anyway." Lokhak raised his hand and pressed the broken sword heavily on the back of Boris's neck.
Boris immediately screamed in agony as he lay prostrate on the ground.
"Hey, don't be impulsive." Azeryan picked up Boris's short sword from the ground close by and hurriedly advised his companion, "Killing him now would just be venting anger. Why bother getting ourselves in trouble over his worthless life when we are leaving soon? It's not worth getting wanted for such a thing."
"Then what do we do? Just let him go? This son of a bitch keeps causing trouble, I really want to mash him up right now." Lokhak said angrily.
"Azeryan's right, since you two are fine, we really don't need to burden ourselves with his blood." Leon calmed down, put away his long sword, and sighed.
Boris gasped for air violently; upon hearing this, his panicking heart finally felt as if it had been granted a pardon.
Yet Leon then changed his tone, "Of course, while we're not taking his life, we still need to teach him a lesson."
"What do you mean?"
Seeing Leon start to flex his fingers, Lokhak couldn't help but smile slightly, as he put away his broken sword and raised both hands, cracking his knuckles.
Azeryan tacitly blocked the stairway.
...
For nearly an hour at the third level of the Windmill Tower, Boris's screams of agony filled the air, gradually weakening in his pleas and cries of pain.
Practicing their punches and kicks on this human punching bag, the three of them beat him till their hands were sore, then dragged the severely injured Boris, who looked like a dead dog, outside the mill and kicked him down the hill.
Watching the almost lifeless figure roll down the dirt slope, Leon felt a delightful satisfaction and briskly dusted off his hands.
"Let's go rest for a while; it will be daylight in a few hours, and we need to get going."
Leon and his companions returned to the windmill; no longer in the mood to catch extra sleep, they tidied up their blankets.
Leaning against the wall, they squinted their eyes and quietly waited for dawn...
Frowning, Leon decided in his heart that once it was daylight, he would warn the old blacksmith and Olivia about Boris having the sedative.
He had no energy to stay here and deal with this despicable village ruffian anymore. He would leave the issue for the young lion and Brian the Blacksmith to handle.
...In the underbrush down the hillside, Boris, like a dead dog, had been unconscious for quite some time and only began to awake slowly as the cold of the deep night seeped into his bones.
His whole body in excruciating pain, he managed to begrudgingly get up, perhaps too used to being beaten up by Olivia since he was little.
Clouds obscured the moonlight, and bereft of all hope, Boris cursed in the absolute darkness.
Talk about a failed attempt—the treasure sword was untouched, and he had been beaten for nothing.
Touching his waist, he realized he had even left his short sword inside the windmill.
Of course, he didn't dare go back to claim it now.
"Damn it, damn, damn, damn!"
Boris frantically scratched and kicked at the dark grass, cursing every foul word he could think of.
He cursed those three foreign runaways, cursed Olivia, and cursed everything he could think of.
Limping along.
After a while Boris looked up again, only to find under the moonlight peeking back out from the clouds that he seemed to have taken the wrong direction.
Not only had he not made his way back to the village, but he had also wandered far down an eastern path.
Now at a loss for who to blame, he spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, intending to turn back, but suddenly, Boris spotted a dense flurry of lights far away and the faint sound of galloping hoofbeats heading towards the village.
...Robbers?!
Terrified, he quickly lay down in the roadside bushes, holding his breath.
Amidst the thunderous hoofbeats, the troupe moved swiftly, each Cavalry holding aloft torches, speeding past the countryside road.
Boris felt a chill down his spine.
Carefully peeking out, he vaguely saw the especially prominent features on those armored Cavalry illuminated by torchlight.
The helmet faces shining with a metallic sheen under the torchlight—this was a symbol of the Kantadar Kingdom Army!
Suddenly, it dawned on him, and Boris started to marvel uncertainly as he abruptly remembered the preposterous excuse he had fabricated about those three young men.
Could it be that those little rascals were not runaways, but indeed spies from Kantadar!?