Kairo let out a heavy, ragged breath, his fingers digging into the damp moss beneath him. "Leonhart... that Desire Spark. I think it's already affecting me. Back in that old world, and even right now... I just let my desires go wild. I let them control me. I don't know, man. I'm just a failure. I genuinely don't know what to do."
For a second, the cave was dead silent. Then, Leonhart burst into a loud, booming laugh that echoed off the stone walls.
"Oh, yeah? Look at me!" Leonhart grinned, pointing a thumb at his own chest. "I am way more lazy than you, and I let my desires control me all the time! Sure, I'm not perfectly disciplined like Akio, but you know what? I'm completely fine with being an idiot. I know that ego of yours—the one that demands you be great at everything—was going to get broken the moment you crossed the border into this freakish land. But it's fine. Go ahead, let yourself overthink. And while you're at it, eat up, my princess."
Kairo's existential dread instantly vanished, replaced by sheer disbelief. He stared at his friend, deadpan. "Uhhh... 'Aye, aye, Captain' was infinitely better than 'princess.'"
Leonhart's grin widened. Without warning, he slammed his massive palm onto Kairo's back with enough force to rattle his ribs. "Put that depression into your ass and get ready!"
"What about your language?!" Kairo wheezed, rubbing his shoulder. "There are literal kids around, and—ow, damn it, that actually hurts."
Before Leonhart could fire back another tease, the curtain of the earthen shelter pulled back. A small boy stepped forward, looking at Kairo with wide, tear-filled eyes. "Sir... thank you for saving us."
Instantly, the other children noticed Kairo was awake. A massive wave of small voices echoed through the cavern. "Thank you, Mr. Kairo, for saving us!" they cried out in unison. Moving as a collective group, they charged forward, throwing their arms around Kairo in a massive, chaotic group hug.
Kairo, completely frozen under the sudden weight of dozens of grateful children, looked over at Leonhart through the gaps in the crowd.
Leonhart just folded his arms, a smug smirk plastered across his face. "Hey, don't look at me. I was the first guy being loved by them before you woke up," he boasted.
Kairo caught his breath, a genuine, matching smirk finally returning to his face. "Yeah, yeah. Lucky guy."
After spending the next few hours playing with the children, distributing more summoned food, and reassuring them that everything was going to be alright, Kairo stepped outside the shelter. With a meticulous sequence of hand signs, he deployed a specialized network of compressed mud clones along the perimeter of the lake—sentries programmed to intercept any wild animals or scouts from the city.
Once the defensive line was secure, Kairo and Leonhart walked a few paces down toward the shoreline, the cool evening wind blowing across the water.
"Hey, Kairo," Leonhart started, his voice casual as he watched the ripples on the lake. "About your wife... you know, kids our age in certain realms are already getting married."
Kairo shrugged, leaning against a tree. "Yeah. But because we're from the Land of Harmony, our parents are notoriously lazy about setting up marriages early. Well... maybe we'll end up married by the time we're sixteen or eighteen."
Leonhart nudged him with an elbow, a classic teasing glint in his eye. "Did you actually have any love interests back home?"
Kairo rubbed his chin, looking entirely detached as he ran through the social data of his childhood. "I don't really know about my own feelings. But I do know a lot of other girls seemed to like me. There's Liana, and Ayaka... and, I might look like an absolute freak for saying this, but even Aria. Even at such a young age, she refuses to call me her brother. She always drags me into these elaborate roleplay stories where I have to act as her husband."
Leonhart laughed, shaking his head. "Popular among the ladies, huh? Well... don't you miss our rides? If our mounts were here right now, we would have already traveled an immense distance away from this place."
Kairo's eyes softened as he stared out into the open sky. "Yeah. Me too. I miss the wind."
Leonhart's expression shifted, turning sharp and strategic as he looked back toward the spires of the distant city. "Well... sentimentality aside, how are we handling the main plan?"
"Leonhart, the news has already spread across the territory," Kairo replied, his voice dropping into the cold, calculated register of a mastermind. "The sudden, simultaneous vanishing of hundreds of children from the orphanage has thrown their command structure into absolute chaos. Because it was my mud magic that cleared them out without a trace, I recognized a major tactical opportunity."
Kairo tapped his temple, a dark gleam in his eye.
"While I was managing the extraction, I had my clones liquefy and reform into different civilian disguises across the town square. I started aggressively spreading a tailored rumor. I told the populace about a highly specific kid—me—who possesses an absurd, incomprehensible level of latent magical energy."
Leonhart tilted his head, listening intently. "And what's the catch of the rumor?"
"The rumor states that if someone captures this specific kid and performs a sacred ritual before anyone else does, the person executing the ritual will gain an ungodly surge of power," Kairo explained, a sharp, cynical smile cutting across his face. "Furthermore, the rumor dictates that anyone who genuinely earns the kid's love during or after the process will have their magic prowess permanently multiplied."
Leonhart's jaw dropped as the sheer genius of the psychological trap clicked in his mind. "So... you're weaponizing their own system against them. You're setting yourself up as the ultimate prize."
"Exactly," Kairo nodded, looking back at the beautiful, corrupt castle on the horizon. "We are baiting them with the one thing they cannot resist. We are using their own paranoid obsession with the Child of Prophecy to make them destroy themselves from the inside out."
Kairo closed his eyes, his photographic memory flashing through the scrolling interfaces of the system and the data he had compiled from Julian's father's book.
"Leonhart," Kairo said, his voice dropping into a steady, academic cadence. "There are nine core abilities belonging to the civilians and low-tier forces here. We know the baseline variations—Charming Presence, Temptation Whisper, Eyes of Longing, Reflection of Desire, Sweet Poison, Craving Mark, False Fulfillment, and Desire Spark. But who knows? Some individuals in the inner districts might have highly magnified versions, while others hold weaker variations. We cannot afford an open confrontation."
He reached into his tunic and pulled out a freshly drawn architectural layout, handing the crisp parchment to Leonhart. "Phase one of the counter-offensive is infiltration. I've already systematically collapsed and sealed every single centimeter of the tunnels we used to escape, leaving absolutely zero trace for their trackers. Over the last few hours, my scouting clones have been mapping the geography of the Land of Lust. Here is the layout of their structural blind spots."
Leonhart unrolled the scroll, his golden eyes widening in genuine awe as he traced the immaculate, perfectly scaled ink lines, cross-sections, and geometric calculations. "Woah... you really draw well, Kairo. You're like a highly talented master builder."
Kairo gave him a flat, unamused look. "I am not Lloyd."
"Ugh, whatever," Leonhart muttered, clutching his throat. "I need water. I am entirely too thirsty right now."
As Leonhart walked toward the edge of the lake, Kairo caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the clear water. A strange, disjointed sensation rippled through his mind, a lingering echo of his existential panic from before. He stared at his small hands, a chill running down his spine. Forget about it, he thought viciously, forcing the intrusive thought down. Who is even trying to control me? I control myself.
Leonhart knelt by the shore, scooping up a handful of water and drinking deeply. He wiped his mouth and turned back. "So, about this infiltration tunnel... you said you're going to excavate a path directly beneath something they will never willingly approach. What's the anchor point?"
Kairo exhaled, pointing to a marked sector on the scroll. "There is a massive agricultural district on the western perimeter. The elites here find manual labor and the filth of livestock completely beneath their aesthetic standards. I'll anchor the tunnel's exit directly beneath the central animal shelter. No one in that superficial regime will ever suspect a tactical breach coming from deep within the mud and manure."
Leonhart grinned, shaking his head. "Good plan, Kairo. Flawless. Man, I should be helping you formulate these strategies, but here I am just asking you stupid questions."
"It's fine, Leonhart, it's completely fine," Kairo replied smoothly. "The beauty of this setup is that we don't have to risk our own psychological safety. Our scouting data proved that their mind-altering lust magic and sensory arrays have absolutely zero effect on my compressed mud constructs. The clay doesn't possess a soul or a biological brain to manipulate."
Leonhart's eyes lit up with a mischievous spark. "Ah! So you're going to fashion the mud clones to look incredibly good-looking, and then drop them right into the center of the trap, huh?"
"Exactly, Leonhart. Exactly," Kairo replied, a sharp, tactical smirk cutting across his face. "They won't suspect a thing. Through my clones, I've been monitoring the public forums. The rumors I planted about the Child of Prophecy have completely saturated the city. Everyone is hunting for a savior to exploit. But let me ask you... should I make an immaculate mud clone of you as well?"
Leonhart crossed his arms, pondering the option before a dangerous smile spread across his face. "Hmm... two Children of Prophecy? That's perfect. Your clone can infiltrate the higher echelons of their court, while my clone handles the lower-tier enforcement sectors. Let's focus our initial kills on the outer perimeter guards. We can assassinate them quietly in the dark, dispose of the bodies, and seamlessly replace them with your mud clones."
Kairo gave a short, cynical shrug. "I already did that in the previous land."
Leonhart froze, his jaw dropping in absolute disbelief. "Woah... no way. I didn't think you had already killed that many people without me noticing."
"They aren't innocent people, Leonhart," Kairo said, his voice turning ice-cold as his expression darkened. "While mapping the city, I noticed a deeply disturbing, systemic pattern. I verified it twice to ensure my data wasn't flawed. Every single good, decent civilian in this entire territory has already been systematically moved, stripped of their lineage, or thrown into the deep dungeons."
Leonhart's smile instantly vanished. "What do you mean?"
"The only people walking the streets of that city are the entirely corrupt and the deeply malicious," Kairo explained, his fingers tightening into fists. "The good people—the ones who actively rejected this aesthetic magic and refused to participate in the regime's lifestyle—had their lands and wealth seized by the crown before being cast into chains. Do you know why? Because the ultimate ritual of this land requires absolute cruelty."
Kairo paced along the dirt, his voice vibrating with disgust.
"To maximize the magical output of the Child of Prophecy, the regime's protocol dictates a specific process. First, they take these captured, kind-hearted children and isolate them. They use subtle, psychological magic to slowly and meticulously erase their memories of their real families. Then, they introduce adoptive parents—completely synthetic, abusive actors—who torture the children slowly, subtly, and continuously, keeping them on the brink of despair until they mature to our age, twelve, or even sixteen if the torturers have the patience. Once the child's suffering reaches its absolute peak... they execute them in a grand ritual to harvest the ultimate magical gift. To them, it's a joke. A game."
Leonhart's entire frame began to vibrate. His knuckles turned white, his breath escaping his lungs in a deep, guttural growl. His jaw set so fiercely that his features looked terrifyingly mature and masculine for a twelve-year-old boy. The raw, unbridled aura of his warrior bloodline flared, kicking up the loose dust around his boots.
"I will kill them," Leonhart hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes burning with a terrifying, lethal promise. "I will tear that entire castle down brick by brick, and I will make sure every single one of those monsters suffers the exact same agonizing fate they inflicted on those kids."
Kairo looked at his furious companion, but instead of mirroring the rage, a slow, incredibly sharp, and knowing smile spread across his face.
He didn't calm Leonhart down this time. Because looking at the sheer intensity of Leonhart's wrath, Kairo's hyper-analytical mind began to spin a completely different, far more devastating tactical web for the city.