“What exactly would you like me to do in exchange?”
The easiest way to move on from strangers equally terrified of each other to barebone cooperators was to find a shared business.
If Camila could be useful for Leo while he had the means that the girl required for something else, they could establish a simple, mutually beneficial relationship.
And the best part about it was that Leo could more or less guess what to expect from the girl’s answer.
‘Help me take revenge, topple a rebel, kill someone specific, restore my birthrights, come up with a business idea, teach me something new and useful…’
The list of things Camila could be interested in wasn’t even that long. It all boiled down to the three most basic and perfectly interconnected needs.
A need for money, for power, and for knowledge.
All that Camila could ever ask for was included in those three categories, no matter how mystic, unrealistic, or outright ridiculous her wishes could be.
If she desired money, Leo could abuse the link with Sava megacorp to turn a profit on the simplest of items, gaining virtually as much wealth as he could ever want.
When it came to power, when compared to what the young man saw so far and then extrapolating it, Leo’s rifle and SMG were more than enough to carve him a small kingdom. And that was only the very bottom of the barrel, the starter pack designed to give the rift walkers the best chance at finding stuff to sell and then upgrading.
‘Just the thought of riding a tank into the tight lines of infantry or stopping a cavalry charge with a single, entrenched autocannon…’
For a slight moment, Leo amused himself with the thought. But before he could even take a breath, the young man forced his focus back to reality.
“I…” even after taking so much time for Leo could consider all of those aspects of the situation, Camila continued to hesitate. Yet, feeling the pressure of needing to give some sort of answer, she raised her eyes and…
And she took Leo completely off guard.
“Honestly…?” Camila pressed her lips together and took a deep breath, calming herself down. And once she opened her eyes again, for the very first time, she presented a look of complete inner peace. “Nothing. I cannot bear the thought of pushing you into my own problems. Everything that’s happening is…”
Despite showcasing quite a lot of determination, Camila ended up lowering her head and pinning her eyes to the ground.
“It is my problem and my responsibility to solve.”
Camila raised her eyes again. This time, however, she no longer bore that calm and determined look from just before, instead opting for some fake bravado.
“Let me guess because it is hard to keep power if it was easily given, yet it is easy to hold on to the power if it was taken with much effort?” Recalling a quote from one of the ancient fathers of political thinking, Leo shamelessly decided to make it his own.
In a world without Machiavelli, those words could very well be forever remembered as the words of Leonard The Great!
“That’s…” Taken aback by Leo's words, Camila took half of a step back while giving the young man quite the look of startled awe.
“Right on the point?” Leo asked, the corner of his lip trembling as he tried his best to hide his smirk.
“That too, but…” Camila rushed up to answer, only to burn her enthusiasm down as quickly as it exploded out of her. “Those words…” Camila’s throat moved as she gulped her saliva down.
At this point, Leo could only pretend to be in perfect control of the situation, given how he lost track of the girl’s thought process and thus his ability to figure out what was going on through Camila’s head.
“Those words hold a lot of wisdom, but…” Camila attempted to explain herself again, only to end up blushing and looking away before she could finish her sentence.
“Forgive me for interrupting, sir Leo,” the older of Camila’s two retainers stepped a bit closer, more to put an emphasis on his presence rather than to close the distance to have an easier time attacking. “But it doesn’t matter what Lady Camila would like you to do if we currently have no means to provide you with artifacts of any sort.”
Leo turned his eyes from Camila who she introduced per Urk, only to then roll them back to the girl.
Most of Camila’s head was covered in the very same cloth that masked her face before, with the sole exception of her face which she revealed all the way back during their first encounter. Now, however, this only served to limit just how big of a part of the girl’s blush Leo could actively see, with how it clearly went beyond just the exposed part of the girl’s cheeks.
‘Wait, so is it that simple?’
By now, no matter Leo’s doubts and hesitation, he couldn’t deny how joining Camila’s group, even if only as an observer for now, was likely the most beneficial route he could take.
Sure, there was nothing stopping Leo from leaving those three to their own devices, for he no longer had the ability to openly go against them, not with the ability Camila revealed. And by letting them go on their own…
What would the chances be of Camila using her knowledge of Leo’s origins to her own advantage, throwing him under the bus in the process?
‘If I can’t really kill them nor can I let them roam free without supervision due to what they know, joining hands is the only reasonable way out. And while I could easily find someone else to learn the local common sense from…’
Unable to take a step back like Camila or a step forward like Urk due to the fluffiest of the doggos comfortably snacking on the food while resting over Leo’s feet, he was more than capable of casting a sweeping look at his current group.
To the left, just enough distance away to remain non-threat within Leo’s perception, was the youngest of the group, introduced as Zion, the kid who tried to rush him all the way back during their first encounter.
‘In a sense, he’s the reason for how we learned Camila’s ability works on me,’ Leo thought, before moving his eyes over to the right side of the girl,. There, the middle-aged and grizzled Urk stood, trying his best to hide how hard it was on him to bring up something so embarrassing for his lady.
And then, there was Camila. Stuck in the middle between the two of her loyal retainers, desperate to somehow make the two parties cooperate… Only to now openly reject Leo’s offer of cooperation?
“In other words, you would happily accept my help and support but you cannot for you have no means of holding your end of the deal?” Leo asked while slightly raising his left eyebrow. Yet, despite putting on a stern face, a warm feeling started to spread from his abdomen throughout his body.
‘Is this how it feels to be treated fairly?’ Leo thought, slightly amused by the fact while also inherently questioning just where Earth’s society took a wrong turn for something so small, simple if not even basic to be enough to fill Leo with gratitude.
“You don’t need to spell it out in our faces, man,” Zion muttered to the side, revealing his voice to Leo for the very first time.
“Damn…” Leo whistled before slowly bending down his knees to a squat while under the constant scrutiny of the eyes of the dog below… All for the sake of carefully reaching down and brushing his fingers against the doggos’ fluff in this extremely high-dopamine exercise.
“Well then, how about we make it even simpler,” Leo looked up, while the movements of his hands continued to develop, from just brushing through the dog’s fur, to scratching it behind the ear, then scratching the top of its head all the way to running his hands up and down the dog’s spine.
‘Scratching above the tail shall remain my hidden ace,’ Leo thought, forcefully restraining himself from the habit of reaching for the area that most dogs loved to have scratched.
“Simpler?” The sparks of jealousy appeared in Camila’s eyes as she watched with great and focused intent how Leo played around with the fluffy dog at his feet. For some reason, both of her retainers ended up shocked by the efficiency of his moves, staring down at how he played with the dog as if they were watching a master craftsman or a master swordsman at work.
“Yes, simpler,” Leo nodded his head before raising his eyes to look up to Camila’s face.
And it was only from this lowered perspective that came with Leo’s bent knees that he started to notice a peculiar side of things, something that largely escaped his attention thus far.
‘She’s shaped quite nicely, isn’t she?’
While inferior to the military masking of modern grade, Camila’s light and skin-tight clothes did a really good job at hiding her curves… Or rather, the shape of her body in its entirety. Still, as great work as the strange coloring of the trio’s clothing did when looking at it straight ahead, now that Leo cast his stare from down below, the magic-like properties of their clothes quickly became obsolete.
‘Wait, is it an optical illusion like military camos, or…’
Leo’s eyebrows moved up his forehead. His hand stalled, ending up just resting atop the fluffy dog’s back.
“Well, how about, for now, we simply travel together?” Leo finally voiced out the most reasonable suggestion he had come up with thus far. “If there are any small and unbinding tasks, I shall offer my help. In exchange, you will teach me the common sense of this world and answer questions that might be so basic or strange, they would be bound to attract the attention of anyone I would ask otherwise.”
Those three already knew Leo came from literally nowhere. They witnessed his coming with their own eyes, after all. And that would make Leo’s thirst for local knowledge something natural, and obvious, as opposed to how it would be if he decided to part ways with Camila’s group and seek answers from someone else, unaware of Leo’s circumstances.
“That’s…”
Camila’s eyes flashed up with something Leo could only describe as hope. The girl quickly hid it, but the damage was already done.
‘So her situation is bad,’ Leo summed up, enriching the database of what he already knew with yet another piece of the puzzle.
“I really hope you two,” Leo looked from Urk to Zion and then back, “are quite strong, though.”
Noticing the sudden change in the direction of the conversation, Camila rapidly raised her eyes and locked them on Leo’s face.
“And why is that?” she asked in a tense voice.
‘So she’s still wary of me,’ Leo took notice, only to smile at his own thoughts while he raised his hand and pointed with his thumb behind his back, to where he left the huge crate of supplies open and unshielded by the camo mesh.
‘Well, I’m still wary of her and her men, so it’s pretty normal. It would be weird if we became buddies so quickly.’
“I have a world of supplies in that box, but there’s no way in hell I can be bothered to move it around.”
Urk lowered his eyebrows as he started to form an unpleasant expression.
“So you want my men to carry your stuff?” Camila asked, struggling to keep her annoyance off her face.
“Not at all.” Leo put on a huge smile while shaking his head in denial. “I want to sell it to you.”
“Didn’t I tell you already that…”
“No, you didn’t.” Leo interrupted Camila’s words while raising his hand to point at Urk. “He did,” he pointed out at the grizzled, middle-aged man. “And what’s even more important, it’s only a guess based on a random observation from just now, but…” Leo pretended to hesitate while putting on an even bigger smile on his face, a smile he only ever saw in reality on the stupid propaganda commercials of the megacorp.
“But there’s a chance your clothes…” Leo spoke out while looking right at Camila’s face, only to reflect on the potential meaning of his wording of choice mere moments before disaster.
“No, that’s not it,” Leo shook his head right as the trio started to flare up a little. “The clothes that all three of you are wearing,” Leo fixed the way in which he referred to the strange masking outfits that the three of them wore. “There’s a chance they are exactly the type of artifacts that I’m looking for.”
“What exactly would you like me to do in exchange?”
The easiest way to move on from strangers equally terrified of each other to barebone cooperators was to find a shared business.
If Camila could be useful for Leo while he had the means that the girl required for something else, they could establish a simple, mutually beneficial relationship.
And the best part about it was that Leo could more or less guess what to expect from the girl’s answer.
‘Help me take revenge, topple a rebel, kill someone specific, restore my birthrights, come up with a business idea, teach me something new and useful…’
The list of things Camila could be interested in wasn’t even that long. It all boiled down to the three most basic and perfectly interconnected needs.
A need for money, for power, and for knowledge.
All that Camila could ever ask for was included in those three categories, no matter how mystic, unrealistic, or outright ridiculous her wishes could be.
If she desired money, Leo could abuse the link with Sava megacorp to turn a profit on the simplest of items, gaining virtually as much wealth as he could ever want.
When it came to power, when compared to what the young man saw so far and then extrapolating it, Leo’s rifle and SMG were more than enough to carve him a small kingdom. And that was only the very bottom of the barrel, the starter pack designed to give the rift walkers the best chance at finding stuff to sell and then upgrading.
‘Just the thought of riding a tank into the tight lines of infantry or stopping a cavalry charge with a single, entrenched autocannon…’
For a slight moment, Leo amused himself with the thought. But before he could even take a breath, the young man forced his focus back to reality.
“I…” even after taking so much time for Leo could consider all of those aspects of the situation, Camila continued to hesitate. Yet, feeling the pressure of needing to give some sort of answer, she raised her eyes and…
And she took Leo completely off guard.
“Honestly…?” Camila pressed her lips together and took a deep breath, calming herself down. And once she opened her eyes again, for the very first time, she presented a look of complete inner peace. “Nothing. I cannot bear the thought of pushing you into my own problems. Everything that’s happening is…”
Despite showcasing quite a lot of determination, Camila ended up lowering her head and pinning her eyes to the ground.
“It is my problem and my responsibility to solve.”
Camila raised her eyes again. This time, however, she no longer bore that calm and determined look from just before, instead opting for some fake bravado.
“Let me guess because it is hard to keep power if it was easily given, yet it is easy to hold on to the power if it was taken with much effort?” Recalling a quote from one of the ancient fathers of political thinking, Leo shamelessly decided to make it his own.
In a world without Machiavelli, those words could very well be forever remembered as the words of Leonard The Great!
“That’s…” Taken aback by Leo's words, Camila took half of a step back while giving the young man quite the look of startled awe.
“Right on the point?” Leo asked, the corner of his lip trembling as he tried his best to hide his smirk.
“That too, but…” Camila rushed up to answer, only to burn her enthusiasm down as quickly as it exploded out of her. “Those words…” Camila’s throat moved as she gulped her saliva down.
At this point, Leo could only pretend to be in perfect control of the situation, given how he lost track of the girl’s thought process and thus his ability to figure out what was going on through Camila’s head.
“Those words hold a lot of wisdom, but…” Camila attempted to explain herself again, only to end up blushing and looking away before she could finish her sentence.
“Forgive me for interrupting, sir Leo,” the older of Camila’s two retainers stepped a bit closer, more to put an emphasis on his presence rather than to close the distance to have an easier time attacking. “But it doesn’t matter what Lady Camila would like you to do if we currently have no means to provide you with artifacts of any sort.”
Leo turned his eyes from Camila who she introduced per Urk, only to then roll them back to the girl.
Most of Camila’s head was covered in the very same cloth that masked her face before, with the sole exception of her face which she revealed all the way back during their first encounter. Now, however, this only served to limit just how big of a part of the girl’s blush Leo could actively see, with how it clearly went beyond just the exposed part of the girl’s cheeks.
‘Wait, so is it that simple?’
By now, no matter Leo’s doubts and hesitation, he couldn’t deny how joining Camila’s group, even if only as an observer for now, was likely the most beneficial route he could take.
Sure, there was nothing stopping Leo from leaving those three to their own devices, for he no longer had the ability to openly go against them, not with the ability Camila revealed. And by letting them go on their own…
What would the chances be of Camila using her knowledge of Leo’s origins to her own advantage, throwing him under the bus in the process?
‘If I can’t really kill them nor can I let them roam free without supervision due to what they know, joining hands is the only reasonable way out. And while I could easily find someone else to learn the local common sense from…’
Unable to take a step back like Camila or a step forward like Urk due to the fluffiest of the doggos comfortably snacking on the food while resting over Leo’s feet, he was more than capable of casting a sweeping look at his current group.
To the left, just enough distance away to remain non-threat within Leo’s perception, was the youngest of the group, introduced as Zion, the kid who tried to rush him all the way back during their first encounter.
‘In a sense, he’s the reason for how we learned Camila’s ability works on me,’ Leo thought, before moving his eyes over to the right side of the girl,. There, the middle-aged and grizzled Urk stood, trying his best to hide how hard it was on him to bring up something so embarrassing for his lady.
And then, there was Camila. Stuck in the middle between the two of her loyal retainers, desperate to somehow make the two parties cooperate… Only to now openly reject Leo’s offer of cooperation?
“In other words, you would happily accept my help and support but you cannot for you have no means of holding your end of the deal?” Leo asked while slightly raising his left eyebrow. Yet, despite putting on a stern face, a warm feeling started to spread from his abdomen throughout his body.
‘Is this how it feels to be treated fairly?’ Leo thought, slightly amused by the fact while also inherently questioning just where Earth’s society took a wrong turn for something so small, simple if not even basic to be enough to fill Leo with gratitude.
“You don’t need to spell it out in our faces, man,” Zion muttered to the side, revealing his voice to Leo for the very first time.
“Damn…” Leo whistled before slowly bending down his knees to a squat while under the constant scrutiny of the eyes of the dog below… All for the sake of carefully reaching down and brushing his fingers against the doggos’ fluff in this extremely high-dopamine exercise.
“Well then, how about we make it even simpler,” Leo looked up, while the movements of his hands continued to develop, from just brushing through the dog’s fur, to scratching it behind the ear, then scratching the top of its head all the way to running his hands up and down the dog’s spine.
‘Scratching above the tail shall remain my hidden ace,’ Leo thought, forcefully restraining himself from the habit of reaching for the area that most dogs loved to have scratched.
“Simpler?” The sparks of jealousy appeared in Camila’s eyes as she watched with great and focused intent how Leo played around with the fluffy dog at his feet. For some reason, both of her retainers ended up shocked by the efficiency of his moves, staring down at how he played with the dog as if they were watching a master craftsman or a master swordsman at work.
“Yes, simpler,” Leo nodded his head before raising his eyes to look up to Camila’s face.
And it was only from this lowered perspective that came with Leo’s bent knees that he started to notice a peculiar side of things, something that largely escaped his attention thus far.
‘She’s shaped quite nicely, isn’t she?’
While inferior to the military masking of modern grade, Camila’s light and skin-tight clothes did a really good job at hiding her curves… Or rather, the shape of her body in its entirety. Still, as great work as the strange coloring of the trio’s clothing did when looking at it straight ahead, now that Leo cast his stare from down below, the magic-like properties of their clothes quickly became obsolete.
‘Wait, is it an optical illusion like military camos, or…’
Leo’s eyebrows moved up his forehead. His hand stalled, ending up just resting atop the fluffy dog’s back.
“Well, how about, for now, we simply travel together?” Leo finally voiced out the most reasonable suggestion he had come up with thus far. “If there are any small and unbinding tasks, I shall offer my help. In exchange, you will teach me the common sense of this world and answer questions that might be so basic or strange, they would be bound to attract the attention of anyone I would ask otherwise.”
Those three already knew Leo came from literally nowhere. They witnessed his coming with their own eyes, after all. And that would make Leo’s thirst for local knowledge something natural, and obvious, as opposed to how it would be if he decided to part ways with Camila’s group and seek answers from someone else, unaware of Leo’s circumstances.
“That’s…”
Camila’s eyes flashed up with something Leo could only describe as hope. The girl quickly hid it, but the damage was already done.
‘So her situation is bad,’ Leo summed up, enriching the database of what he already knew with yet another piece of the puzzle.
“I really hope you two,” Leo looked from Urk to Zion and then back, “are quite strong, though.”
Noticing the sudden change in the direction of the conversation, Camila rapidly raised her eyes and locked them on Leo’s face.
“And why is that?” she asked in a tense voice.
‘So she’s still wary of me,’ Leo took notice, only to smile at his own thoughts while he raised his hand and pointed with his thumb behind his back, to where he left the huge crate of supplies open and unshielded by the camo mesh.
‘Well, I’m still wary of her and her men, so it’s pretty normal. It would be weird if we became buddies so quickly.’
“I have a world of supplies in that box, but there’s no way in hell I can be bothered to move it around.”
Urk lowered his eyebrows as he started to form an unpleasant expression.
“So you want my men to carry your stuff?” Camila asked, struggling to keep her annoyance off her face.
“Not at all.” Leo put on a huge smile while shaking his head in denial. “I want to sell it to you.”
“Didn’t I tell you already that…”
“No, you didn’t.” Leo interrupted Camila’s words while raising his hand to point at Urk. “He did,” he pointed out at the grizzled, middle-aged man. “And what’s even more important, it’s only a guess based on a random observation from just now, but…” Leo pretended to hesitate while putting on an even bigger smile on his face, a smile he only ever saw in reality on the stupid propaganda commercials of the megacorp.
“But there’s a chance your clothes…” Leo spoke out while looking right at Camila’s face, only to reflect on the potential meaning of his wording of choice mere moments before disaster.
“No, that’s not it,” Leo shook his head right as the trio started to flare up a little. “The clothes that all three of you are wearing,” Leo fixed the way in which he referred to the strange masking outfits that the three of them wore. “There’s a chance they are exactly the type of artifacts that I’m looking for.”
