Sovereign's Path

Chapter 26: Leon and Yuki

The sun had climbed considerably higher than it should have by the time Leon’s eyes opened.

He stared at the ceiling for a moment.

Then he sat up, his white hair going in four different directions at once, and rubbed his face with both hands.

He swung his legs off the bed and sat there for a bit, not really doing anything. Just staring, the way you do in those first few minutes before your brain fully catches up with the rest of you.

Then it caught up.

And the first thing it caught up with was last night.

Suddenly a transculent screen appeared on front of Leon. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

[REQUIREMENTS MET]

[HOST HAS DEMONSTRATED COMPATIBILITY WITH PRIMORDIAL BEAST TAMING SYSTEM]

[DETECTED : SUCCESSFUL FORMATION OF DIVINE BEAST CONTRACT]

[DETECTED : SUBMISSION OF CENTURIES OLD PRIMORDIAL ENTITY]

[SUCCESS RATE : 99.9%]

[WOULD HOST LIKE TO BIND WITH THE PRIMORDIAL BEAST TAMING SYSTEM ?]

...

Leon looked at it.

It glowed back at him patiently.

"Reject." He said.

He blinked, he wasn’t about to get into that again, more importantly...

"Yuki, huh."

It all felt like a dream. After all, he’d just gone to the forest out of curiosity. Who knew he’d meet a beast like that?

He said it with his back turned. He scratched the back of his head and stared at the floor.

And now he had a servant.

He got up, went to the wardrobe, and started getting dressed, turning the whole thing over in his head the way he turned most things over—quietly, without rushing it.

Not by plan. He’d wandered into a forest at night because he was curious and had come back with an ancient beast on a mana contract. The alternative was leaving her unsupervised with questions about him that she’d eventually find answers to one way or another.

As the saying goes, _keep your friends close, and enemies closer_. There was no doubt that was what Leon planned on doing. He wasn’t so naive to think a beast like that was on his side. Maybe she had some ulterior motive.

He pulled his collar straight.

He wondered how she was doing.

Probably fine, he decided.

He crossed the room and opened the door.

And then he stopped.

Yuki was standing directly on the other side of it.

Right there. Immediately there. Close enough that Leon actually took a small step back from the surprise, his hand still on the door handle, his eyes wide for a genuine second before he got them back under control.

Their gazes met.

Her ears were up. Her tails swayed in a calm rhythm. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, and she had the expression of someone who had been standing exactly where they were standing for a while and saw nothing unusual about it.

"Good morning, Master," she said pleasantly.

Leon stared at her.

"Why?" he said.

"Why what, Master?"

"Why are you here?"

She blinked. "This is where I was waiting."

"You were waiting outside my door?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She tilted her head very slightly, her ears angling with it. "Because you were inside."

He looked at her for a moment with the expression of someone who had asked a question, received a technically correct answer, and was now trying to figure out the correct follow-up question.

"How long?" he said finally.

"Not very long," she said.

"Yuki."

"Yes, Master?"

"How long?"

A small pause.

"Almost two hours," she said.

"Two hours?" he repeated.

"You were still sleeping," she said in a calm voice. "I didn’t want to knock."

"So you just..." He gestured at the doorway, at the corridor, at the general concept of where she was standing. "Stood there?"

"Yes," she said.

"For two hours?"

"I didn’t mind," she said simply.

Leon stared at her.

She looked back at him with those golden eyes and the serene expression of someone who genuinely could not identify what the problem was.

He turned around and walked back into his room and stood there for a second with his back to the door.

Then he turned back around.

She was still there.

Of course she was still there.

"Okay," he said. "First thing: don’t do that."

Her ears tilted. "Don’t do what, Master?"

"Stand outside my door for hours."

"But I was waiting for—"

"Knock," he said. "Like a normal human."

"Ah, but I’m not a human" she said.

"Ah right" how could he forget, she wasn’t.

"I understand," she said. Then, after a brief pause, "I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be disturbed."

"Knocking asks that question," he said. "That’s what knocking is for."

She considered this with the gravity of someone receiving genuinely new information. freeweɓnøvel.com

"I see," she said. "That is more efficient."

"Yes," he said. "It is."

He stepped out into the corridor, pulled the door shut behind him, and started walking. Yuki fell into step beside him immediately, her tails swaying, her robes settling around her.

They walked in silence for a moment.

He had been curious about how her entry into the estate went.

Then he decided to ask.

"Yes, I encountered quite a bit of trouble with the guards upon entry," she said. "It was a bit troublesome. And there was this brat who seems like he has an issue with you, Lord Leon."

Leon, on the other hand, could only think about how her guards had attacked him on entry, and now she was complaining? But wait, did she mean Julian?

He was the only figure that came to Leon’s mind at that moment.

"You did attack me too, didn’t you?" Leon retorted.

"That was because I didn’t know who you were back then," Yuki protested.

"Fair enough" he guessed.

"Of course, Master," she said, falling back into step beside him without missing a beat.

"And stop calling me Master every two seconds," he added.

She was quiet for a moment.

"What should I call you then?" she said.

"Leon," he said.

Another pause.

"That feels disrespectful," she said.

"I’m seven," he said. "You’re fine."

Her ear twitched.

"...Leon," she tried.

"There you go," he said.

"Lord Leon," she finally said.

At this point, Leon only facepalmed.

"Fine, suit yourself," he said.

They reached the top of the stairs, and Leon stopped, looking down at the floors below, taking in the sounds of the household moving around them. The distant clink of dishes. Voices somewhere. The smell of food coming up from the direction of the kitchen.

His stomach made a decision about priorities.

"I’m starving," he said, already heading down.

"I know," Yuki said, following. "You haven’t eaten."

"I was busy," he said.

"Now let’s go," he said, pulling her hand as they headed downstairs.

And somewhere behind her composed expression, in a place she was keeping entirely to herself, something warm moved through her that she had no proper name for.

She followed her master down the stairs.