Chapter 1726 - 240 - The Battle at the Black Pole (1)

Leon's POV

It had been three days since I had my conversation with Kaori, and from what I could tell, it seemed like at least a little bit of hope had finally been lit inside her after everything that had happened. I couldn't exactly confirm what was going through her mind or what she had decided to do afterward, but judging from how she had acted when we last spoke, there was a good chance that she had stopped seriously considering suicide.

Honestly, that alone was enough to make me feel somewhat relieved.

I didn't want her to die, so I had decided that revealing my identity to her was worth the risk. I wanted her to have at least one reason to believe that she wasn't completely alone in this place, because there was someone watching over her and looking out for her even if she couldn't openly depend on anyone else around her.

I didn't think she had told any of the other heroes about it, though.

From the way she reacted during our conversation, she seemed to believe that I might have wanted to keep the fact that I had been Tsubasa in my previous life hidden from my former classmates and teacher from my old world. Considering how complicated things could become if that information spread around, I couldn't exactly blame her for making that assumption.

Well, I didn't particularly mind either way.

If she wanted to keep it a secret for now, then I certainly wasn't going to complain about it. In fact, I appreciated that she had decided to keep something like that to herself instead of casually telling everyone the moment she got the chance.

As for Sakai, she still hadn't woken up either.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any complications with her condition that would give me reason to seriously worry about whether she would wake up. Natasha had already examined her and told me that she would eventually regain consciousness, and according to her, it shouldn't be too long before that finally happened.

I was hoping she was right.

At the moment, I was sitting inside one of our monitoring rooms.

After winning the campaign against the Empire when they attacked us, we decided that increasing our surveillance was probably the sensible thing to do. Winning one battle didn't mean that the war was suddenly over, and assuming that the Empire would simply sit around and accept its defeat would have been an incredibly stupid mistake on our part. That same goes to the Republic as well.

Because of that, we had started keeping a much closer eye on the surrounding regions.

With the additional surveillance, we were also beginning to notice things that we probably wouldn't have seen before. Previously, our attention had mostly been limited to our own territory and the areas immediately surrounding us, but now we had a much wider view of what was happening outside our usual range.

That alone had already proven useful.

It also meant that there were considerably more things for us to worry about, which was probably the downside of being able to see more than we used to.

"Lilia," I said, looking toward her as she approached, "what is it?"

"Seems like Shredica is finally coming back," Lilia said as she walked toward me with the news.

I looked at her for a moment.

I honestly had no idea why she felt the need to personally report Shredica's return to me, considering that we already knew she would eventually come back after finishing what she had been sent to do. Still, I supposed there was nothing wrong with informing me.

For some context, after being tasked with training the heroes, Shredica had traveled all the way to the other side of the world to secure additional reinforcements for us, just in case we ended up needing them later.

It was basically a precaution.

Considering how things had been going lately, having additional allies available wasn't exactly a bad idea. If another major conflict happened, having more people ready to fight would obviously be better than suddenly realizing that we didn't have enough forces when the fighting had already started.

The place she had traveled to was also the homeland of Bernadette.

It was the region where those who were similar to ninjas were from.

From everything I had heard about it, the culture there seemed somewhat similar to what I remembered as an Asian country from Earth. If the region we were currently in could be compared to the western side of Earth, then that place was closer to what I would consider the eastern side.

The comparison wasn't perfect, of course, but it was probably the easiest way for me to understand the general atmosphere of the place.

"She said the negotiations went well," Lilia continued. "Since Bernadette was with her during the discussions, things apparently turned into something much closer to a peaceful negotiation instead of becoming a complete disaster."

She paused briefly before looking at me.

"Luckily, Bernadette seems to have a pretty good reputation with the people there, and apparently she's some kind of important figure as well. Where the hell did you even manage to find her?"

An important figure?

That was definitely news to me.

When I first met Bernadette, she had been training to become a prostitute. I had saved her from eventually being forced into becoming a full-fledged prostitute, and after that, she started working for me as a member of the Shadows.

As far as I knew, she had never told me anything about having some sort of important position in her homeland.

She had never mentioned that she was connected to influential people there either.

I had simply known her as Bernadette.

Apparently, there was considerably more to her background than I had originally realized.

Still, whatever her position happened to be, it was good that she had been able to help us.

If she could make negotiations with the people there considerably easier, then I wasn't about to complain about having someone like her on our side.

"When is she coming back?" I asked.

"Well..." Lilia glanced toward the outside before looking back at me. "Probably right about now, I guess."

Before I could respond to that, I suddenly heard the sound of wings flapping somewhere above us.

The noise was far too loud and distinct to be mistaken for something ordinary, and the sound was coming from above rather than from anywhere on the ground around us.

There was absolutely no way that was a helicopter.

For one thing, the sound was completely different from helicopters. This sounded much more alive, and the rhythmic beating of the wings made the answer fairly obvious once I actually thought about it.

A dragon, perhaps.

Or maybe a wyvern.

Either one would explain the sound reasonably well.

Instead of standing there and wasting time guessing what was flying overhead, I decided that actually checking it out would probably be considerably more useful.

I left the monitoring room and headed outside.

When I reached the area outside, I saw Shredica descending toward the ground on the back of a wyvern. The creature spread its wings as it lowered itself, eventually landing firmly on the ground before Shredica climbed down from its back.

Bernadette was sitting behind her during the flight.

Unfortunately, she looked considerably less composed than Shredica did.

Actually, she looked like she was struggling pretty badly with motion sickness.

Shredica, meanwhile, looked perfectly fine.

"Welcome back," I said as I approached them.

Shredica turned toward me and looked at me for a moment.

Her eyes moved over me as though she were checking whether I had somehow managed to get myself killed while she was away.

"It seems you're still alive," she said after a brief pause. "Good."

Her expression remained as indifferent as usual, making it difficult to tell whether she was genuinely relieved or simply stating an obvious fact.

"I would rather not see you die in a battle this easy."

I stared at her for a moment after hearing that.

That was certainly one way of saying that she was glad I hadn't died.

I couldn't tell whether she was actually happy to see that I was still alive or whether she was simply making another one of her blunt remarks without thinking much about how it sounded.

Knowing Shredica, either explanation was completely possible.

Still, I supposed that was simply how she was.