Chapter 49: Life Afterwards

Leon eventually made good on his promise and went home.

It wasn’t immediately after the tournament. Leon later discovered just how much work went into being first place, but a few days later, Leon found himself standing outside the Carter residence again.

He had barely stepped inside before Alice appeared, leaping on him like a joyous Golden Retriever, "Lili!"

He almost fell as he wasn’t expecting it, but thankfully, he managed his balance properly.

Leon sighed. "You know you can just call me Leon."

Internally, he couldn’t help but thank the heavens that his body hadn’t reacted in any weird way. ’She does realize that I am a healthy growing boy, RIGHT?’ It was a trap, one he had escaped.

"Because Lili is better." She protested, pressing even harder against him. Leon had to make a mental note to find the chance to caution her later, ’or maybe tell Alyssa? She seems more reliable.’ He thought to himself.

"It isn’t." He said, lowering his stance so she could come down.

Alice ignored him and grabbed his arm.

"Come on! We’ve been waiting."

Leon let himself get dragged along as they made their way towards the house.

His stepmother was already in the sitting room, along with Alyssa. The moment Leon entered, the atmosphere changed.

His stepmother smiled as she approached him, drawing him in for a huge unexpectedly.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you, mum." He said.

Seeming to recover from the happiness, she pulled away, making her way to the kitchen as she had prepared something specially for him.

"You’re not going to hug me too, are you?" Leon asked, looking towards Alyssa who was standing behind their mother before she left.

"Of course not." She said, a faint smile appearing on her lips as her face softened a bit. Leon didn’t thing much of it at that time, though he did note that it felt a bit out of character. "Congratulations on your victory." She said.

"Thank you."

"So the three summons are real?" Alice asked, excitement in her voice.

"Didn’t you see them already?" Leon asked. "You saw the match."

"I did, but I want to see them properly."

"You already saw them."

"That doesn’t count, though. I want to see them with my own eyes~"

Leon looked at her. "It absolutely counts."

"No~~ You were fighting." She faked and exaggerated sobbing, pulling his sleeves. "I want to actually look at them."

His stepmother laughed softly. "She’s been asking about them since she saw the videos online." She walked out of the kitchen with an apron for a bit. Leon looked around the room. Even his step mother looked very much interested, probably why she came out of the kitchen.

"Fine, I’ll show you guys." He said, stepping away from them.

Choosing carefully, he brought out the same summons he used in the tournament. Even though everyone had already seen the summon during the tournament, seeing it standing only a few steps away was different.

The Swordsman stood nearly seven feet tall, ancient armor covering its body while one hand rested near the sword at its waist.

Its empty eye sockets carried that faint, deep blue glow, and the death energy coming off it hit them like a wave.

Alice stared at it, the earlier excitement mostly drained. "That’s terrifying." She said.

"You’re the one who wanted to see it."

She took a step closer, wanting to go near and inspect it. To be safe, Leon commanded the undead summons to remain inactive.

The Skeleton Swordsman simply stood there.

"Those are the other two?" She said, pointing at the two Skirmishers.

"Yes."

"They’re fast, right?"

"Yeah they are."

"Can they beat the big one?"

Leon glanced at the Skeleton Swordsman.

Then at the two Skirmishers.

"Probably not."

’Woahhhh... She moved closer, even touching the armour of the summon as she looked all round it.

Alyssa was the same, almost examining the summons as she observed them.

"This isn’t a Grade 1 Summon." She said, drawing Alice’s attention sharply.

"Of course not, that’s a Grade 3 Undead Great Swordsman." He said. There was no need to hide it, and he didn’t bother trying. He already caught how his stepmother observed the thing, he was sure she already knew all about it.

"Grade 3? WOAHHH! Haha~ My brother’s so powerful~" Alice said as she jumped on Leon in celebration, her mood instantly shooting through the roof.

"Hey!" Alyssa watched Alice. "Mum, shouldn’t you warn her?" She said.

With a sigh, their mother waved the spatula in her hand, "Alice, don’t make your brother uncomfortable, get off him."

"Huh? But he isn’t uncomfortable, are you?" She looked at Leon. Leon himself couldn’t fathom how she could be so clueless, but it really seemed genuine.

’I really hope nobody tries to use her innocence against her.’ He thought to himself. Luckily, he was fine, overflowing with brotherly love for the girl.

After they had looked at the summons to their heart’s content, he pulled them back, and they just spent the time talking.

His stepmother had baked a whole cake, which they ate to their heart’s content. Alice joked about baking being the only talent their mother had in the kitchen, and the brief glare she received was worth at least 10 punishments.

It ended up being a fun and exciting time they shared together as a family.

.

.

.

Leon had visited during the week end following the week of the tournament, and the following week, he was back to school already.

The academy returned to something resembling normality over the following week.

Classes resumed, training grounds filled again, and students went back to worrying about their own rankings, upcoming exams, dungeon assignments, and everything else that had seemed important before the tournament.

For most of them, life had simply continued, but for Leon, things were a little different.

His name was still everywhere, seeing as the tournament was too recent for people to stop talking about it, especially after the final.

Leon Carter had defeated Aaron Grey.

He had revealed three undead summons.

And, perhaps most importantly, he had done all of that after spending most of his life being considered a failure.

There were arguments about him everywhere, even a few conspiracies forming around the fact that he had gone home for a while and after coming back was a changed person capable of beating the likes of Aaron Grey.

Some students believed Leon had simply been hiding his strength all along. Others thought he had gotten lucky against Aaron, although those arguments usually didn’t last very long.

"He only lost because of the tournament restrictions."

That particular argument came up more often than expected. Of course, Leon wasn’t there to hear it, though Dustin did the due diligence of relaying what new thing was being said, whether Leon wanted to hear about it or not.

"I told you, his Python wasn’t even allowed to use its main strength."

"That’s right. A serpent like that is a constrictor-type, and it wasn’t allowed to constrict during the tournaments. Everyone knows that."

"And do you seriously think a summon like that doesn’t have a special ability? There’s no way!"

"Exactly. If Aaron had been allowed to fight without restrictions, that match would’ve ended completely differently."

"It would have ended even before it began bro."

Some students disagreed.

Others defended Aaron immediately.

"Leon still beat him."

"Under tournament rules."

"Rules are rules."

"That doesn’t mean Aaron was weaker."

The discussions usually went nowhere, as such age long arguments do.

The people arguing for Aaron pointed out that his summon was a Constrictor Snake, something that could end most fights almost immediately if it was allowed to use its natural ability. The academy had banned such techniques during the tournament because they could cause serious injuries or end matches too quickly.

Aaron hadn’t used any special ability either. That fact bothered some of the more experienced students.

They knew enough about summons to understand that it was almost impossible for a summon at his level to have no special ability whatsoever.

Whatever the Python’s true abilities were, the audience had never seen them, and Aaron had still managed to push Leon’s Grade 3 Skeleton Swordsman to its limit while fighting alongside Python.

To some people, that only made Aaron’s loss more impressive.

To others, it made the result impossible to judge.

Of course, if only they all knew the truth.

While Aaron had been restricted by the academy, Leon had restricted himself. The difference was that nobody knew Leon had been holding back the entire time for his own sake.

As the arguments continued around the academy, Leon himself had very little interest in them.

He attended his classes, sat quietly as always, except for when Dustin was his seatmate; he answered when someone asked him a question.

The practical nature of the academy made that life easier.

There were only a few traditional classes where students spent most of their time sitting in classrooms. The majority involved training, combat practice, summon control, physical conditioning, or other forms of practical work, and whenever there was a gap between classes, Leon had developed a habit that slowly started irritating people.

—He simply did nothing—

It wasn’t in a rebellious way or in some way to make a statement, he would simply find somewhere comfortable and relax.

Sometimes he read, sometimes he closed his eyes and just slept... If there was enough time, he did both.

The first few days, people found it strange, then it became irritating.

Their irritation was born from a different place. It wasn’t because they disliked him, if anything, the opposite was true. The other students had simply expected something different from the winner of the tournament.

They expected Leon to be training constantly.

They expected him to spend every free moment improving his summons, strengthening himself, studying combat techniques, or doing something that made sense for someone who had suddenly become one of the most talked-about students in the academy.

Instead, Leon would finish training—which he barely put in effort, walk away from the field, find a bench or a quiet patch of shade, and sit down or liedown.

It was almost disappointing.

"I don’t understand him."

Two students stood near one of the training grounds, watching Leon sleep under a tree.

"He just won the tournament."

"I know right?"

"And this is what he does?"

The other student looked at Leon for a moment.

"I guess that’s just how geniuses are."

Leon turned slightly in his sleep, and thinking he might have heard them, neither of them said anything after that and just focused on whatever they were doing.

This wasn’t the reaction Leon had expected when he first started getting attention. Then again, he hadn’t really expected any reaction.

He had never understood why people assumed becoming stronger meant spending every waking moment training... actually, he did... it’s just that, it didn’t apply to him.

While others trained their summons, his summons had nowhere to grow to. All his summons already came at their peak, having reached the height of their potential.

While he couldn’t explain all this to justify his supposed laziness, that attitude, became one of the first things Linda noticed.