Knights and Magic Wand
Chapter 55 - 55 46 Bloodstained Windfall

55: Chapter 46: Bloodstained Windfall 55: Chapter 46: Bloodstained Windfall He didn’t know if it was the exertion of unleashing the “Isa’s Arrow” that had drained his energy, but he slept incredibly deeply.

It wasn’t until Leon woke up naturally and opened his eyes that he realized he had somehow been moved to the bed of a room.

The mattress was thick and soft against his back, the pillow behind his head was truly comfortable, and the blanket over him carried an inexplicably faint, subtle fragrance.

For a moment, the pleasurable comfort gave him the illusion that he was back in his own bedroom on Earth, the only thing missing was the cell phone alarm clamoring for him to get up for work.

Taking a deep breath, his mind became clear, dispelling the nostalgic illusion.

Confused, Leon turned his head to inspect his surroundings.

The room was dim, void of candlelight or an oil lamp, and the leather-shielded wooden window was closed, showing no signs of brightness.

He couldn’t tell how long he had slept, nor could he distinguish whether it was day or night at that moment.

While he had regained quite a bit of his strength, there was still a faint ache in his chest, but the injury was not severe.

Propping himself up to sit, Leon threw off the blanket and moved his feet to touch the floor beside the bed.

However, he was startled by the unexpectedly soft sensation beneath his feet.

Accidentally stepping on a patch of soft-bodied flesh, he quickly lifted his foot in a reflexive response.

“…Hmm?” The girl, who had been sound asleep, opened her bleary eyes.

Pushing herself up from the blanket laid on the floor, she rubbed her sleepy eyes with her hand.

In the dim light, the girl looked up to see a silhouette sitting up on the bed and softly greeted, “Leon, you’re awake.”

“Olivia?

Why are you…

sleeping on the floor?”

Leon couldn’t see clearly in the dark, but he certainly couldn’t mistake the voice of the girl beneath his bed.

The girl, just roused from her sleep, seemed a bit groggy as she sat up with her knees bent, yawned, and answered somewhat dully, “…well, there’s…

only one bed in the room, and all the guest rooms are filled with the injured…”

Leon felt a bit embarrassed—it wasn’t right for a grown man like himself to take over a young lady’s bed: “Sorry, I was sleeping so deeply, I had no idea how that Lokhak kid managed to move me into your room.”

“It wasn’t him, it was I who carried you here.

I saw how tired you were, and I thought it best for you to rest properly in a bed,” Olivia clarified, defending the innocent Lokhak.

At her words, Leon was momentarily speechless.

Although the girl’s intentions were clearly kind, he felt something was off.

Wasn’t he the one who got the part of the heroine wrong?

Normally, wasn’t it men like him who offered their beds for ladies to rest?

He also noticed Olivia had used the word “carried.”

Leon couldn’t imagine what he looked like being carried by the other party while he was asleep.

He hoped it was more like being hoisted in a sack rather than a princess carry.

Otherwise, the scene was too beautiful to behold.

Shifting his position slightly and finding a spot on the floor, Leon stood up and said to the girl, “You take the bed.

I’m not really injured, and I’ve rested enough now.”

As he spoke, he fumbled his way around Olivia’s bedding laid out on the floor, walked to the opposite side of the bed, and pushed open the leather-covered window.

Moonlight streamed in, revealing that it was deep into the night.

Turning to look back at the lit interior of the room.

He meant to say something, but Leon’s heart unexpectedly skipped a beat.

Her hair cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall, seemingly touched by the moonlight thrown into the room, giving her shiny golden locks a softer hue.

The girl’s expression was still slightly hazy with sleepiness, her fair skin highlighted by the night with a translucent blush, while her green eyes were still as clear and bright as shining stars.

“It’s alright, I couldn’t let you, our saviors, sleep on the floor,” Olivia shook her head.

Suppressing his accelerating heartbeat and looking at the girl’s lightly bandaged left shoulder, Leon became insistent, and continued to urge,

“You’re the injured one, and I’m not hurt at all.

Consider it a man’s stubborn pride if you must, but I won’t argue anymore.

I can’t possibly let a young lady give up her bed for me and sleep on the floor.”

Seeing that he had invoked the matter of male dignity to such an extent, Olivia tilted her head and reluctantly accepted his insistence, “Alright, since you’re so adamant.”

But as she got up, she still had a small complaint about that address, “You don’t look much older than me either?

Although I’m not tall, I am sixteen years old, I’m not some little girl.”

Leon inwardly chuckled—indeed, he was the same age as this body, but still a whole ten years younger than his former self in his previous life.

Children this age used to call him “uncle” in his colleague’s family.

After the girl climbed into bed and snuggled into her own quilt, Leon only partially closed the window and walked over to the bedding laid out on the floor.

Bending down, he lifted the blanket.

However, it wasn’t until he actually lay down that he realized his suggestion…

might have been a mistake.

The residual warmth still lingered in the quilt, and the distinct fragrance was all the more potent, invading his nostrils.

Why did he feel like he had become some kind of pervert who stealthily sniffed at a young girl’s personal belongings?

But wait a moment.

Since he could detect her faint, clear body scent,

didn’t that mean his own manly sweat smell must have also lingered in Olivia’s bed?

Leon felt instantly awkward and at a loss.

It wasn’t that he was unhygienic, but up until now he had been living rough, and today he had been through bouts of fighting and killing; there was no time for him to attend to personal cleanliness.

Leon quickly raised his hand to his nose.

Fortunately, he did not smell much and felt somewhat relieved.

Perhaps it was because the body of the youth he occupied was not that old and lacked the robust body odor of an adult male.

But he overlooked the fact that, unless the scent was overpowering, it was very difficult for anyone to detect the smell they had already grown accustomed to.

On the bed.

…Feeling the heat flush her cheeks, Olivia was overwhelmed by the unfamiliar scent in the blanket…

…

The next morning, Leon, who woke up early, did not disturb the still-sleeping Olivia and silently tidied up the bedding on the floor before carefully leaving her room.

As he walked downstairs, he saw that in the hallway, now cleared of debris, lay many women and girls of various ages.

They were huddled together in small groups, faces wet with the remainders of tears, still sound asleep.

The door was without a trace of Lokhak; instead, young boys and even children, led by a few youths, were clad in mismatched armors likely stripped from corpses.

Holding swords, spears, and silently guarding the resting women and children within.

Leon treaded lightly down the stairs.

The sound alerted the makeshift guards by the door.

They looked back into the house and saw the foreigner Olivia had spoken of.

Amidst the untamed pain and sadness in the eyes of the youths and children, they nodded at Leon with gratitude.

Feeling their kindness, Leon nodded back and silently stepped out the front door.

Breathing in the air, still rife with the scent of fresh blood, he was surprised to find the streets already cleaned, absent of yesterday’s corpses.

Walking a distance, he stopped and looked toward the central square of the village, where a large number of bodies, now covered with burlap, were piled up awaiting burial.

It seemed that after he had fallen asleep the night before, the village’s survivors had, under someone’s leadership, taken care of many post-battle necessities.

“Morning, Leon, risen early, have you?”

Hearing Lokhak’s greeting, Leon turned to look.

Not far from a civilian house’s entrance, where his friend was nowhere to be seen just a moment ago, sat Lokhak, armed with a long-handled halberd and clad in a lavish plate armor, evidently pilfered from a knight, as if guarding something.

“What brought you here?” Leon walked over and asked in confusion.

Armored and armed, Lokhak pointed to the door behind him, “Olivia was busy with things inside and out yesterday.

Besides moving stuff, I didn’t know what else I could help her with, so I decided to watch over the captives here.”

“Captives?” Leon asked in bewilderment, “Are there surviving Kantadar people who did not die?”

“Yes, there’s one alive, but it’s a big fish, a knight that Olivia injured in the thigh.”

Lokhak paused and suddenly leaned in with a look of intrigue, “Also, to tell you something, it might be in poor taste given the circumstances of this village…

but, we might just turn misfortune into fortune, and hit a big time.”

Leon frowned, the way his friend spoke he could swear it sounded like profiteering.

For a moment, he might have thought that they were about to loot in the aftermath of disaster.

However, Leon knew his friend wasn’t like that.

Glancing at the handsome knight armor Lokhak was wearing, Leon grasped what the “big fortune” was about.

“All that armor, weapons, even the warhorses, especially those that are still alive…” Lokhak said, his voice trembling.

He bowed his head and whispered into his friend’s ear, “I just roughly estimated, guess how much those Kantadar bastards left behind are worth on the market?

At least twelve or thirteen hundred Serrian gold coins!

Blimey, I checked so many times I thought I was counting wrong.

That’s enough to buy a small castle.”

Hearing such a colossal value, Leon was visibly moved.

At that moment, he suddenly understood what was meant by “war spoils.”