Chapter 41: Lotus Rest (3)

"When I was seven," Mira continued, her voice dropping to a quiet murmur. "My parents took me to the beach. I didn’t know how to swim. Not a stroke. But I saw all the older kids out past the break, laughing, diving under the waves. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be brave."

She pulled her knees up beneath the water, wrapping her arms around them.

"I waded out. The water was only up to my waist. I thought I was fine. And then the shelf dropped. I took one step, and there was no bottom. Just empty water." Her silver eyes darkened with the memory. "I remember the panic. The cold. The way the water rushed into my lungs when I tried to scream. I was thrashing, fighting with everything I had, but the ocean didn’t care. It was just pulling me down into the dark."

Mira looked across the hot spring, meeting Leon’s eyes directly.

"I was dying. I knew I was dying. And then... a hand grabbed my wrist."

A faint, nostalgic smile touched her lips.

"It was a lifeguard. A teenager, probably no older than eighteen. He had seen me go under. He dove in, swam out, and dragged me back to the shore. He broke three of his own ribs doing chest compressions on me until I started breathing again."

She leaned her head back against the stone, staring up at the dark sky above the courtyard.

"He didn’t know me. I wasn’t his family. I was just some stupid kid who had walked into my own grave because I was too arrogant to realize how deep the water really was. But he took it upon himself to save me anyway. If he had just minded his own business, if he had just stayed exclusive to his own problems... I would have died at seven years old."

Leon felt a sudden, profound shift in his understanding of the woman sitting across from him.

"When I grew up, I made it my life mission to do what he did," Mira said, her voice firming up. "To be the person standing on the edge, pulling people out of the deep end. And then... the system took us. Dropped us into Eternal Heaven. A world where everyone is drowning. Where everyone is terrified."

She looked at Leon, a fierce, protective fire burning in her silver eyes.

"I saw you walk up to that Level 22 dungeon. And all I saw was a stupid kid, walking out past the break, not realizing the shelf was about to drop. I couldn’t just stand there and let you drown, Leon. I couldn’t."

Leon stared at her. The sarcasm, the gruff exterior, the demanding of a 5% cut—it was all just a coping mechanism. Beneath it all, Mira was driven by a deep, unshakeable debt to the concept of saving lives. She wasn’t clinging to him because she wanted his power.

She had stayed by the dungeon because she wanted to save him. And when he came out alive, she had stuck around because he was the one person she hadn’t failed to reach.

"Mira," Leon said softly, his voice thick with genuine respect. "That’s... incredible. Truly."

Mira’s face instantly flushed bright red, realizing just how much of her soul she had just bared to a man she met yesterday. She immediately splashed a handful of hot water directly at his face.

"Shut up!" she snapped, reverting instantly to her defensive, sarcastic persona. "Don’t make it weird! I’m just telling you why I didn’t want your idiot face getting chewed off by undead guards! It’s purely selfish!"

Leon wiped the hot water from his eyes, laughing loudly. The heavy, emotional atmosphere shattered, replaced by the warm, comfortable banter that had defined their brief partnership.

"Alright, alright," Leon chuckled, raising his hands in surrender. "I understand. You’re a hardened mercenary who only cares about the bottom line. My mistake."

"Exactly," Mira huffed, crossing her arms again beneath the water, causing the surface to ripple dangerously close to exposing her.

Leon sat in the water for another few minutes, letting the heat soak into his bones, but eventually, the temperature of the Imperial Suite’s mineral spring began to take its toll. The water was incredibly hot, and even with his enhanced Constitution, he was starting to feel lightheaded.

"Alright," Leon sighed, rolling his shoulders and resting his hands on the stone edge of the tub. "I’m done. I’m going to turn into soup if I stay in here any longer."

He looked across the water at Mira.

"Turn around."

Mira blinked, looking at him with a mischievous, teasing glint in her silver eyes. The emotional vulnerability from a moment ago was completely gone, replaced by a playful smirk.

"Oh, come on," Mira teased, leaning forward slightly, the water sloshing against her collarbones. "Stop joking, Leon. We’re all adults here. It’s not like you have anything to hide."

Leon paused. He looked at her, his expression perfectly deadpan.

He had spent the last days of his previous life bedridden, unable to feel the touch of another human being, unable to experience the most basic physical pleasures of life. Now, he was in a flawless, god-tier body, sitting in a hot spring naked across from a stunningly gorgeous woman with silver hair and a chest that defied gravity.

"Mira," Leon said, his voice entirely serious, carrying a low, gravelly warning. "My dragon has a very hard time ever being asleep right now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you."

Mira scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "Please. You’re all talk. Just get out of the tub."

"Alright," Leon said casually.

He stood up.

The water cascaded off his heavily muscled, perfectly reconstructed physique as he rose from the depths of the hot spring to his full height.

Mira’s teasing smirk instantly vanished.

Her silver eyes tracked upward, widening to the size of dinner plates as they locked onto his lower half. The blood rushed so quickly to her face that she looked like she was going to pass out. Her jaw literally dropped open, a small, strangled squeak escaping her throat as she desperately tried—and completely failed—to look away from the sheer, overwhelming majesty of the "dragon" he had just warned her about.

"Why is it that big?!" Mira shrieked, violently covering her eyes with both hands and sliding down until she was completely submerged under the water, blowing frantic bubbles in pure, unadulterated shock.

Leon just chuckled, grabbed a towel, and walked back inside.

He was really going to like this second chance at life.