Chapter 121: Old books
"Alright," Leon said, raising both hands slightly in a small gesture of surrender. "Fine. What else, though?"
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, clearly annoyed, though apparently not annoyed enough to actually get up and walk away, which he took as a reasonably good sign. "Why does it matter to you?"
"Just curious," Leon said simply.
She studied him a moment longer, her blue eyes narrowing slightly as though trying to read something deeper behind the question, before eventually deciding it wasn’t worth arguing over any further. Instead, she shifted the conversation back onto him.
"Are you a player?" she asked.
"Yes," Leon said, without hesitation.
Her eyebrows lifted slightly at the confirmation, some faint curiosity flickering behind her earlier irritation. "Are you strong?"
He considered the question for a beat, weighing how much to actually reveal.
"A little," he said finally, keeping his tone deliberately modest, understated in a way that felt almost dishonest given everything he’d accomplished in the last several hours alone.
Iris studied him again, her gaze sweeping briefly over his still slightly damp hair, the borrowed clothes hanging a touch loose on his frame, clearly a poor match for his actual build.
Whatever she’d pictured when imagining a player, he evidently didn’t match the image at all.
"I don’t really like players," she said, her tone carrying a faint edge now. "Most of the ones I’ve met are so full of themselves. Like the whole world owes them something just for existing."
Leon huffed out a short, genuine laugh at that, the sound slipping free before he could stop it. "You’re not wrong."
That seemed to catch her off guard. Her eyes widened slightly, clearly having expected him to argue the point defensively.
That was the way most players probably did when faced with that kind of criticism. Instead, he’d simply agreed, plainly and without any wounded pride attached to it.
Something in her expression shifted slightly in response, the wariness in her posture easing by a small but noticeable degree.
She uncrossed her arms, resting her hands instead in her lap, her shoulders relaxing just enough that Leon could tell the earlier tension between them had loosened somewhat.
He let the small moment settle for a beat before pushing forward again with the question he actually cared about.
"So what else do you believe in?" he asked. "Besides the system thing."
She sighed, the sound carrying more exasperation than genuine reluctance. "Depends what you mean."
"Have you ever heard the name Arthur Pendragon?"
The reaction was immediate and unmistakable. Her entire posture shifted at once, surprise flashing openly across her face, her earlier composure cracking wide open in an instant.
"How do you know that name?" she asked, her voice sharpening considerably, carrying an edge that sounded almost accusing now.
Leon paused deliberately, choosing his next words with care.
He hadn’t expected such a strong reaction, and the intensity of it only deepened his growing suspicion that she genuinely knew something real, something beyond idle rumor or academy gossip.
"I saw it somewhere," he said finally, keeping his tone carefully vague, offering nothing more specific than that.
Iris stared at him for a long, searching moment, her bright blue eyes studying his face intently, as though trying to determine whether he was lying to her outright.
The silence between them stretched on, heavy and uncertain, neither of them quite willing to be the first to look away.
"I know that name too," she said slowly, finally breaking the silence. "But if I tell you what I actually know about it, you’re going to think I’m crazy."
"I won’t," Leon said, keeping his voice steady and sincere.
She hesitated, clearly still weighing whether to actually trust him with whatever she was holding back.
Her fingers twisted slightly against the fabric of her sleeve, a small, nervous gesture that betrayed just how much this particular subject seemed to matter to her.
Finally, she exhaled slowly and spoke.
"Arthur was a king," she said. "From centuries ago, long before any of this, before the system, before players even existed as a concept. He’s known mainly for his sword, the legendary blade Excalibur."
Leon kept his expression carefully neutral on the outside, giving nothing away, but internally, something in him sharpened immediately, snapping fully into focus.
She actually knew about Arthur.
His mind raced ahead immediately, already reaching toward the obvious next question sitting right behind it.
If she knew this much about Arthur and Excalibur specifically, there was a real, genuine chance she might know something about Medusa as well. Or Aegis. Or Heracles, or any of the other names relating to his legendary items.
Learning more from her might somehow help him in unlocking the full power of all his legendary items.
He forced himself to stay outwardly calm, careful not to let his growing excitement show too openly, not wanting to spook her into silence before he’d managed to pull out everything she actually knew.
"That sounds like an interesting story," he said instead, deliberately keeping his tone light, almost dismissive, testing her reaction rather than revealing his own.
Iris’s expression darkened instantly, the same sharp flash of irritation from earlier returning in full force, her earlier softness vanishing completely in the span of a single sentence.
"It’s not just a story," she snapped, her voice rising slightly, sharp enough that a nearby patron glanced briefly in their direction before returning to their own reading.
Iris’s jaw tightened at his tone, her earlier composure slipping further with every passing second.
She pushed back from the table, the chair scraping softly against the polished floor as she rose to her feet.
"Why am I even telling you this," she muttered, more to herself than to him, already turning away.
Leon reacted on instinct, his hand shooting out and catching her wrist gently before she could get any further.
"Wait," he said.
She froze, glancing down at his hand wrapped loosely around her wrist, then back up at his face, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and lingering irritation.
"Let go," she said, though there wasn’t quite as much force behind the words as there had been a moment ago.
Leon released her immediately, holding both hands up slightly in a small, placating gesture. "Sorry," he said. "I didn’t mean to sound dismissive."
Iris studied him for a long moment, clearly deciding whether his apology was worth trusting. She didn’t sit back down right away, remaining standing at the edge of the table, her arms crossed loosely over her chest.
"You laughed at me earlier," she said. "And now you’re calling my explanation just a story. Forgive me if I don’t believe you suddenly care."
"I do care," Leon said. "That’s why I’m asking you to stay."
She hesitated, her weight shifting slightly between her feet, still visibly torn between walking away entirely and giving him another chance.
After a few seconds, something in her posture relaxed just slightly, and she lowered herself back into the chair, though she kept her arms crossed, a clear sign she wasn’t fully convinced yet.
"Fine," she said. "But if you laugh again, I’m leaving. For good this time."
"Understood," Leon said.
He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms against the edge of the table, doing his best to project genuine interest rather than the casual amusement he’d let slip through earlier.
Whatever she actually knew about Arthur, he needed her to keep talking, not shut down entirely out of frustration.
"Tell me more," he said. "About Arthur. How do you even know about him? It’s not exactly common knowledge."
Iris was quiet for a moment, her fingers picking absently at the hem of her sleeve.
"I used to read a lot as a kid," she said finally. "Old books. The kind nobody really pays attention to anymore. My grandmother had a whole collection of them, stories passed down from way before the system even existed."
Leon’s attention sharpened at that. "Before the system?"
She nodded. "Most people don’t realize the system isn’t actually that old. A few decades, at most. Before that, this world worked completely differently. There were no dungeons, or anything like players."
"Wow." Leon muttered, nodding his head.
The truth was that, he already knew about what she was saying, since even the description of his legendary items had confirmed that they were from a time centuries ago, long before the system existed.
But he acted like that detail caught him off guard slightly, like he had never really considered what the world might have looked like before the system’s creation.
"So the stories in those books," he said slowly, "they’re from before all that?"
"Some of them," Iris said. "Old legends. Myths, technically, according to most people. Stories about kings and gods and monsters that supposedly existed long before recorded history even properly began."
"And Arthur was one of them?"
She nodded again. "My grandmother used to tell me about him all the time. Said he was real once, a long, long time ago. A king who united a broken kingdom, wielding a sword blessed by goddesses. Excalibur."