Chapter 258
After leaving Robin's room, Leon turned left and entered the sixth door.
To be honest, at this point he was just opening blind boxes.
He had absolutely no idea who would be waiting for him in each one.
He pushed the door open, stepped inside, entered.
Without even glancing at who was there, he went straight to the chair and sat down — one smooth, unbroken motion.
"...Hello?"
The voice that reached his ears was cool and detached, yet carried with it a curiously robotic, endearingly blank quality.
Leon raised his eyes and took in the face of the person before him.
Then he covered his own face with his hand.
Oh god, how did Acheron end up here too.
This game's detection criteria was genuinely baffling.
"Right, uh — let me ask you something."
Leon sighed and looked at her.
Things had already come to this point; there was nothing to do but press forward. A Rabbit Knight absolutely could not stop halfway!
"Mn." Acheron gave a small nod.
"Do people who walk the Path of The Nihility still hold onto emotions?" Leon asked. "Do you even understand what the word 'like' means?"
"Yes. But not much of it."
Acheron pressed her index finger to her chin, adopting a pensive expression.
"Before the shadow of IX completely envelops me, that small remaining portion should manage to persist, fighting to survive."
She answered the first question.
"As for 'liking'..."
Then came the second.
"Honestly, that feeling is something I struggle to recall. The memories in my mind relating to it are very hazy."
Acheron's eyelids lowered, as though something had been stirred from the depths of her past.
"I only vaguely remember that when I was still in Izumo, I used to like sitting beneath a pink tree. Staying there would make me feel..." She paused. "...Safe. At peace...?"
"Would something like that count as liking something?" she asked, genuinely seeking an answer from Leon.
"It counts. But it's not the kind of 'liking' I'm referring to."
Leon wasn't quite sure how to answer this one.
"What I mean is — toward me. What do you feel, when it comes to me specifically?"
Even if this was for the sake of the quest, Leon had never once done something he didn't genuinely mean. He'd made a confession, so he absolutely could not leave things vague and unresolved.
Because responsibility was also part of his stat sheet.
That number had to be maxed out.
What did it mean to be peerless across all ages? It meant sheltering every important person behind you and resolving everything on your own — that was what it meant to be peerless.
Leon was prepared to bear responsibility for all twenty-four of these women. True, weighty responsibility.
So he needed a clear answer.
"You?" Acheron's brow furrowed with genuine confusion.
"Yes. Me."
Acheron fell into silence and thought.
She kept her gaze fixed on him, as though trying to find the correct answer written somewhere on his face.
"I don't know."
Ah, Acheron and her brutal honesty.
"But when I am with you," she continued, "the way The Nihility devours me always lessens... just a little."
She also enjoyed being in the company of Fulibas, but spending time with that person felt more like encountering something inherently soothing — a warmth that reached even a cooling body.
Leon was different.
He felt more like an absolute certainty. As though even if the sky fell, he would be there to hold it up.
"Should I call that feeling 'liking'?"
Because I radiate too much vitality, that's why, Leon thought wryly to himself, not voicing the comment about her phrasing of 'lessens.'
Absolute self-confidence — and the immense strength born from it. A person like him truly was the natural enemy of nihilism.
"If you want to, you can."
Leon wasn't going to deceive anyone. "But strictly speaking, it still isn't the kind of 'liking' I mean."
"Then — do you like me?"
Acheron tilted her head slightly. Since she couldn't arrive at an answer on her own, she might as well use him as a reference point.
"Of course I like you."
Leon gave an affirmative. "If I didn't, I wouldn't have come today."
"Then I like you too?"
"Think carefully. This isn't something trivial."
What was with that vague, uncertain answer? Did she really think 'liking someone' was a simple matter?
"I have the resolve to take responsibility for each of your lives."
Leon looked at her steadily. "So the question of whether to entrust your life to me — that decision belongs to you, and you alone."
Acheron met his gaze without wavering. "Then, should I agree or refuse?"
"As I said — that is for you to decide."
"Do you want me to agree, or to refuse?"
Acheron's expression was completely serious, as though she refused to let the matter go until she had extracted an answer from him.
"That question isn't one I can answer for you."
Leon smiled. As the words left his mouth, he rose to his feet.
"If I answered it for you, it would mean I have no faith in myself — and wouldn't that be surrendering to The Nihility?"
With that, he turned to leave.
"Mei — ask yourself. I trust that you'll find the answer."
Leon paused mid-step, glanced back, and left her with those final words.
Then he walked on toward the next room.
Ask... my own heart...?
Acheron watched his retreating figure.
"The moment you turned and walked away from me, I began quietly calculating in my heart when you might return."
A line she had heard somewhere, at some point she could no longer recall, surfaced abruptly in her mind.
An answer, was it?
---
The seventh room. Leon pushed the door open and walked in.
Same routine as before — he took his seat across from the woman waiting in the room.
Leon was, by this point, a little tired. Six rooms down.
He sighed and decided to just see who number seven was.
"Wait — how are you here?"
Good lord, it was Jingliu.
"Why can't I be here?"
Jingliu was surprised to see who had walked in, and simultaneously deeply confused by his words.
Why couldn't she be here? Was there some rule against it?
She had no idea where 'here' even was.
She'd received a mysterious invitation from nowhere, and then appeared here just as mysteriously.
And she'd been trapped ever since — couldn't leave.
Jingliu had already tried.
The door wouldn't open. The walls wouldn't break. Even when she had thrown her full strength into it, this space had not taken a single scratch. Getting out had become a pipe dream.
After a fruitless bout of struggling, Jingliu had given up and settled in.
She had returned to her chair and sat down properly, reasoning that if someone had invited her, they must have a reason. Whoever it was would come eventually, and then she'd have her way out.
But — how had Leon managed to open that door and move around freely?
Jingliu noticed this discrepancy.
Then again, given his near-invincible level of power, the fact that this place couldn't contain him wasn't exactly surprising.
"Right — because I'm the one who made this place."
Leon decided to give her the brief summary.
"?"
Jingliu had assumed Leon was also an invitee. She hadn't expected him to be the culprit himself.
"There's a prerequisite for receiving an invitation to this space — the person must share a certain emotional bond with me."
Leon scanned Jingliu's face. There was no visible reaction — as though having an emotional bond with him was simply a matter of course.
Jingliu was thinking.
A certain emotional bond? Doesn't that mean the entire Xianzhou Alliance got an invitation?
Just what was the implication here.
Leon didn't follow her train of thought, so he asked.
"So — are you an M?"
Jingliu, brought to her knees by raw stats? Is that what this is?
As the old saying goes: a beautiful woman truly can only belong to someone powerful.
"?"
Jingliu had no idea how he had arrived at that conclusion.
"...I am not."
But she needed to clarify this immediately.
Blade might be an M. She categorically was not.
"Do you like me?"
Jingliu went silent. She simply looked at him.
Neither denying it, nor confirming it.
"I have always wanted to thank you."
After a moment, she spoke.
Leon said nothing, apparently content to hear her out.
"I was blinded by vengeance. I was too reckless, and it led me down the wrong path — I strayed from The Hunt. You were the one who pulled me back in time."
The Hunt without its Constraint becomes The Destruction.
On the Path of The Hunt, pursuing revenge by any means necessary was acceptable. But the moment one failed to impose Constraint upon oneself, the true heart of The Hunt was lost.
Leon only gave a quiet sound of acknowledgment.
"There's no need to thank me. As a member of the Xianzhou Alliance, it was what I was supposed to do."
"Repaying kindness is also a virtue of The Hunt."
To his answer, Jingliu shook her head.
"I wanted to do something for you."
Her cold voice softened on its own, just slightly.
"But in the end, I found that there was nothing I could do."
Oh, so that's what this is.
Leon kept the internal remark to himself.
"I do hold feelings for you."
Jingliu had always been direct when it came to her own emotions.
Any member of the Xianzhou Alliance who had no feelings for Leon could be written off as a traitor.
The living embodiment of The Reignbow Arbiter. Which Xianzhou soul could possibly resist? You could swap in the most dedicated follower of The Abundance and they still couldn't hold out.
Leon carried both The Hunt and The Abundance within him, after all.
"But whether it reaches the level of love — that, I am not certain."
Liking and loving were similar, yet they were two distinct concepts.
"Personally, I think the difference between love and liking isn't all that large."
Jingliu gave a small hum of acknowledgment.
She had to admit one thing.
Looked at across the entire galaxy, there was probably no better option than Leon to be found.
The man before her was, by any measure, perfect.
Anyone who had met Leon would, when facing anyone else, unconsciously compare them to him.
"In any case — there's no rush. Would you be willing to give it a try with me?"
Leon understood these things. He wasn't some kind of incubus, after all.
"I think... it would be my honor."
Jingliu gave him a sincere nod.
[Quest Progress: 6/24]
"Good. I hope I can live up to your expectations."
Feelings grow with time — and she came to me first, so that saves me the trouble of confessing myself. Works for me.
"See you later, then."
Leon rose to his feet and left once more.
Onward. Number eight, let's go.
---
The eighth room.
Honestly.
The more he went on, the more unpredictable the occupants became.
Black Swan being here — was that seriously okay?
I thought of you as a fellow Memokeeper — a comrade in arms! And here you are, thick-browed and bright-eyed, also trying to claim a piece of my six roots!
"Hey, Goose. Tell me the truth."
Leon's expression was the picture of solemnity.
"Are you here because you found out I became Fuli and you want to get in early on the ground floor and eventually become a Memokeeper?"
Not gonna lie, it kind of feels that way.
Stick around for a few years, build up seniority, then apply for the position of Emanator of Remembrance.
"?"
Black Swan had no idea what had prompted that.
"...Could you possibly explain where we are before you start saying strange things?"
His random non-sequiturs were something of a signature at this point, but did he have to launch into them with zero preamble? She hadn't even had a chance to process.
"What do you think it looks like to you?"
Facing someone he knew well, Leon was perfectly content to engage in a bit of idle chatter.
"It carries the flavor of Remembrance."
Black Swan stated her deduction.
She couldn't identify much else, but she could say with certainty that the force composing this space was, without a doubt, Remembrance.
"But judging by the craftsmanship, it feels more like one of The Elation's tricks."
That invitation that had given her no option to decline was textbook Elation in style.
"I did it."
Leon indicated that he had, in fact, also done this one.
"You did it?"
Hearing that answer, Black Swan showed not a trace of surprise.
"That does make sense, actually."
Instead, she wore an expression of of course it was him.
Such powerful Remembrance and Elation combined — across the entire galaxy, he really was the only one who could pull something like this off.
"You went through all this trouble specifically to see me?"
Black Swan was puzzled by his reasoning.
"If you wanted to find me, you should be able to do it effortlessly."
Memokeepers were notoriously difficult to locate — that was widely acknowledged. Because of their Meme bodies, as long as they chose not to reveal themselves, there was essentially nothing the outside world could do to find them. Looking for a Memokeeper was like searching for a needle in a cosmic haystack.
But for Leon, his eyes were his measure. If he truly wanted to find her — or any of the Memokeepers, herself included — none of them should be able to hide from him.
And at the very least, he could simply message her, and she would come running immediately.
Why go through all this elaborate effort?
"Oh, this wasn't made specifically for you."
She's flattering herself. What tier does she think she is?
"Oh."
Black Swan absorbed the information. There was a small pang of something like disappointment, but ultimately, she felt relieved.
Because she knew — she couldn't possibly deserve a gift that grand.
"Speaking of which — is it true you can actually bestow it?"
Black Swan was referring to what he had said at the very beginning.
Not gonna lie, she was genuinely a little tempted by what he'd said — tempted enough to mark a certain checkmark.
She had been there for that God War, after all.
Such a monumental display of Remembrance — there was no Memokeeper alive who could have resisted the urge to witness it firsthand.
Naturally, she had watched the entirety of Leon's magnificent performance without missing a single moment. She had personally witnessed him ascend to the pinnacle of the Path of Remembrance itself.
Which meant...
When Leon said he could make her an Emanator of Remembrance, he genuinely could make her an Emanator of Remembrance.
Is that real, bro? You'd really do it?
Black Swan was also a little tempted to be a senior Memokeeper now.
"Not a chance."
Leon told her to get lost with that idea.
"I can't appoint you as an Emanator — I was only talking. It was just something I said."
Even if he truly held the position of Fuli, he still couldn't bestow Emanator status on others.
Because the Fuli he had become was not the true, complete Fuli who stood at the absolute end of time.
Using this power for himself was about the limit of what he could manage. Branching it outward was a stretch too far.
"So you were just stringing me along?"
Because their relationship was on reasonably good terms, Black Swan wasn't going to maintain rigid formality with him.
"Don't rush."
Leon chuckled. "Do you want a share of Fuli's six roots?"
"? What do you mean?"
What does 'Fuli's six roots' mean? Isn't Fuli just you yourself right now?
"Literal meaning."
Completely literal, word for word, no deception.
"Or let me put it more plainly."
Leon looked at her, his words direct as always.
"I like you. Do you like me?"
"...Am I stuck in some kind of inner demon trial?"
Black Swan was beginning to genuinely question her own sobriety.
No, seriously — who managed to do this to her? Is this actually real?
"If you think someone would dare to impersonate me —"
Whoever dared to run around in a cheap cosplay ruining his image, Leon would be the first to come down on them with a closed fist.
____
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