Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 256

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 256

“Wh-what?!”

“Hm?”

Leo tilted his head innocently, as if wondering what strange thing he had said.

Elsa’s face turned redder than it had ever been before.

‘I must be going crazy. Of all things to mishear!’

“N-nothing. I must have misheard something…”

“You didn’t mishear. I like you, Elsa.”

“…!”

“If being lovers feels too burdensome, how about we start as friends first?”

Elsa’s eyes shook wildly.

The Leo she remembered from their Academy days wasn’t this smooth with words. But what on earth had happened in the meantime to make him so brazenly calm…

“Or do you dislike me so much that you don’t even want to be friends?”

Was he using charm tactics?

When Leo’s shoulders drooped and his face showed a pitiful expression, something like guilt tormented Elsa. After agonizing, she revealed just a tiny bit of her honest feelings.

“…I don’t dislike you.”

“Then you like me?”

“Th-that’s…”

“Hm?”

Leo’s eyes curved gently as he bloomed a spring flower-like smile. It was a smile resembling the mage who lived at the top of the Gray Tower.

As if surrendering to that smile, Elsa finally let out ‘those words’ she had kept in her heart all along.

“But… you know.”

“Yeah?”

Unable to bear Leo’s gaze any longer, Elsa shouted out loud.

“Hey, you have a fiancée!”

“Who? Me? I had a fiancé?”

It was news to the person in question. Elsa stammered as she relayed the rumor she had heard.

“You… proposed to someone at the Coffee House in the Square… saying you wanted to share future plans together…”

“…”

“Is it not true?”

Strictly speaking, it was correct. He had told Ian something about including himself in his future plans.

But he never expected it to be distorted like this.

Leo couldn’t hide his joy.

“You were paying attention to rumors about me. I’m really happy.”

“What? What’s with that expression!”

“What about my expression?”

“Don’t dodge the question and tell me. So do you have a fiancée or not?”

Before they knew it, Leo and Elsa had forgotten the serious atmosphere and started bickering.

Asillia and Edmund had been watching this scene from the darkness beyond the campfire’s reach.

Asillia sniffled and asked Edmund.

“Hey, we came here to hunt demonic beasts, right?”

“Zuiet hae. Bunugi jabchiji malgo. (Be quiet. Don’t ruin the mood.)”

“What?”

“Strictly speaking, I said we came to find the gate.”

“I don’t think that’s what you said…”

“Come, come, let’s stop here, young master. I’ll prepare your sleeping area.”

“Ah, well then I’d appreciate it.”

Edmund skillfully guided Asillia to her sleeping spot.

* * *

Edmund’s consideration in giving Leo and Elsa time alone together bore fruit successfully.

The party’s atmosphere became much closer, and now they had reached a level where they could tell what the other needed just by looking into each other’s eyes.

Camping no longer felt arduous, and just when pretending not to notice the subtle atmosphere between Leo and Elsa was reaching its limit.

“We’ve arrived. That’s the end of the North, the Great Frozen Sea.”

They had reached their destination.

The group silently gazed at the massive lake that spread out like an ocean.

If it were an ordinary lake, the surface should have been frozen solid, but since it was made of saltwater rather than freshwater, the lake’s pitch-black surface lay dormant like a swamp.

“It’s eerie.”

As those words suggested, it wasn’t a particularly beautiful sight. No, it was rather gloomy, as if foretelling doom.

After three years of expedition surveys, the North had concluded that there must be a gate somewhere within this Great Frozen Sea.

It wasn’t entirely baseless speculation. There were indeed frequent testimonies from search parties who claimed to have seen demonic beasts crawling out from within the Great Frozen Sea.

Moreover, the magical energy flowing from the frozen sea dyed the clouds above the lake dark red, so the Great Frozen Sea always harbored massive cumulonimbus clouds.

The Great Frozen Sea, a lake where demonic beasts were born, covered by dark clouds flashing with thunder and lightning.

It wouldn’t be strange if there was a gate somewhere within it.

“So now we just need to search inside this lake?”

Asillia carelessly dipped her hand into the lake, then hurriedly pulled it out in panic. Not only was it freezingly cold enough to burn her skin, but the dense magical energy stung her flesh sharply.

“Do we really have to go in here?”

“I learned magic from my teacher that can protect the body even underwater. Combined with Elsa’s divine power, exploration shouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s fortunate, but…”

Since they still didn’t feel particularly enthusiastic about it, they decided to rest well today to recover their condition before proceeding with the gate search.

And so, with the lake beside them, Leo’s group prepared to camp.

While moving his hands, Leo kept looking back at the lake as if reacting to something.

“Didn’t you just hear some sound?”

“Hey, please don’t say things like that. You’re the one who’s afraid of ghosts, not me.”

Despite Asillia’s scolding, Leo couldn’t shake his suspicion.

Because very occasionally, some noise could be heard from this lake of death where no life forms other than demonic beasts could survive.

A sound as if something was plummeting into the lake.

‘Is there really a gate inside this lake?’

In the early dawn when everyone was asleep, Leo, who had slipped out of the windbreak to gaze at the Great Frozen Sea alone, furrowed his brow.

A full three years. Priests from the Holy Empire, mages from the Mage Republic, knight orders from the Maritime Union, and shamans from the desert tribes. Distinguished figures from each nation had come to the North and combed through every place thoroughly.

The Great Frozen Sea was no exception. Yet they still couldn’t find the North’s gate.

Perhaps the gate was hidden somewhere else.

But when he could only sigh because there was nowhere else to look, he recalled what Belinda had told him before leaving the Royal Capital.

“When you think you’ve reached the end, lift your head and look at the sky. There lies hope.”

“It’s a saying someone I know well passed on to me. When things aren’t going well, try remembering this saying. It might help.”

Leo slowly voiced the saying she had shared with him.

“When you think you’ve reached the end, lift your head and look at the sky.”

He could see the dawn rising beyond the Great Frozen Sea’s horizon being swallowed by massive cumulonimbus clouds.

If he sharpened his senses keenly, he could hear the roaring cry of thunder churning within the cumulonimbus clouds.

“There lies hope.”

Could there be hope even within those dark clouds?

The moment that thought occurred to him, Leo rose from his spot as if drawn by something and grasped the ‘Lamp that Repels Evil’ in his hand.

“Leo, yawn. Where are you going?”

“I’ll just look around the area and come back.”

After saying that to Edmund, who had gotten up to stand watch, Leo used magic to step boldly up into the air.

Even as the air gradually became thinner, making breathing difficult, and his fingertips froze cold, he didn’t stop.

The sacred light of the lantern drove away the darkness that even dawn could not penetrate.

Finally, as Leo walked boldly into the cumulonimbus cloud, lightning struck down before his feet. As if refusing to allow his visit.

But it was already too late. Leo had captured in his eyes the identity of what was hiding in the dark cumulonimbus cloud.

“Ah….”

Right there was what the First King had searched for 700 years ago, and what everyone on the continent had been seeking for the past 3 years.

A gate torn through space, open in the shape of a crescent moon.

The demonic energy that leaked from there had accumulated heavily within the cumulonimbus cloud, and demonic beasts struggled to forcibly widen the gap in that wound and escape.

The one or two that barely managed to pull their bodies out fell straight down into the Great Frozen Sea.

Though goosebumps rose all over his body like seeing a swarm of ants drawn to sugar, Leo couldn’t stop a hollow laugh from escaping.

“There, lies hope.”

Reciting the final words of the maxim Belinda had shared with him, Leo turned around to bring his friends.

Three days later.

The cumulonimbus cloud that had been floating over the Great Frozen Sea vanished without a trace.

* * *

The news that Leo Blanche’s party, who had drawn the holy sword, discovered and destroyed the gate in the North quickly spread throughout the Kingdom and across the entire continent.

A young man who had just completed his coming-of-age ceremony had achieved what even the First King could not accomplish.

The Royal Capital was swept up in a festival atmosphere, eagerly awaiting the hero’s return.

However, no one could be as desperate as Belinda.

On the day Leo was supposed to return.

Belinda, who had been pacing in front of the manor’s gate all day without noticing her cheeks freezing, saw in the distance a splendid carriage crossing over the manor’s fence.

From inside the carriage, which had traveled through the Royal Capital’s main roads and arrived with its roof covered in colored paper and precious winter flowers scattered by people, stepped down the one Belinda had been waiting for so desperately.

“Lady Belinda!”

Belinda embraced Leo with all her strength as he returned after completing the Northern subjugation according to his own stubborn will.

It was a homecoming after a full seven months.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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