Elisa's casual words were like a feather lightly brushing Leon's heart, yet they sent enormous ripples through his muddled thoughts. He jolted out of his half-dreaming comfort, forgetting even the pain of his injuries, and blurted out without thinking, his voice abrupt with urgency:
"What did you just... say?"
The water rippled. Elisa still had her eyes closed, as if those whispered words really had been nothing but a hallucination brought on by Leon's severe injuries. Steam from the hot spring beaded over her delicate yet impassive face, making her look even more like an unmoved crystal statue.
Leon's heart raced. A jumble of anticipation, unease, and some indescribable sense of grievance rose within him. He had arrived in this world and inherited this body and all its messes, yet he knew little about the original owner's real relationships—especially the history between him and the fiancée who had been by his side day and night. His memories were fragmented, steeped in the original owner's strong subjectivity—mostly an assumption of possessive entitlement and the arrogance of believing she "could only accept it because she had no choice." But Elisa's words had just pierced that layer of falsehood like a needle popping a bubble.
He waited a few seconds, but Elisa showed no sign of responding. His stubborn streak kicked in, too. Ignoring the dull ache in his chest and abdomen, he swept a hand through the water and edged a little closer to her. He still kept a considerable distance between them, but they were no longer at opposite ends of the pool.
"Elisa," he said again, his voice gentler now, but carrying a seriousness she couldn't evade. "I think I heard you say... that I wasn't as annoying today?"
He watched her face intently, not missing the slightest change in her expression.
Elisa's long lashes fluttered, and at last she slowly opened her eyes. In the hazy steam, her violet eyes seemed less cold and distant than usual, and more unfathomably deep. She didn't look at Leon. Instead, her gaze rested on the milky-white water, watching the magical petals slowly spin with the ripples.
Silence fell again. The only sounds were the faint bubbling of the hot spring and their soft breathing. Just as Leon thought she wouldn't answer and was about to give up asking, Elisa's cool voice finally broke the silence, calm and clear:
"You heard me."
She hadn't denied it! Leon perked up and immediately pressed her. "So... you mean I used to be really annoying?"
This time, Elisa turned her head and looked straight at him. There was no anger, no resentment, not even contempt in her gaze—only a detached, almost objective scrutiny, as if she were observing an interesting magical phenomenon. That look made Leon feel more mortified than any strong emotion could have. It meant that, in Elisa's eyes, the old "Leon" hadn't even been worth investing much feeling in.
"What do you think?" Elisa didn't answer directly. Instead, she tossed the question back at him, her tone as flat as if she were asking about the weather.
Leon choked on his words. He opened his mouth, and fragments of the original owner's memories surged up beyond his control: swaggering and domineering, bullying men and women alike, frequenting places of ill repute, pestering her relentlessly, and taking it for granted. His face turned ashen, then flushed. Embarrassment, shame, and the frustration of taking the blame for someone else's actions tangled together until he wanted to sink straight to the bottom of the pool.
"I..." he began with difficulty, his voice hoarse. "I... know I did a lot of awful things. To a lot of people... including you."
He lowered his head and gazed at his blurred reflection in the water, the face of "Leon the young scoundrel" now marked by shame and remorse. It wasn't an act. As someone from the modern world who had ended up in another person's body, he truly felt that way about the original owner's behavior. "Maybe... 'annoying' doesn't even begin to cover it." He gave a self-deprecating smile, feeling a faint ache stir in his wounds.
Elisa watched him silently for a few seconds, seeming a little surprised that he'd admit it. Then she looked away again, gazing into the rising steam as if remembering something.
"Loud, selfish, like a cub that could never be satisfied and went around causing trouble." She began listing his faults, her tone still flat, as if she were reciting lab notes. "You took Teacher Margaret's tolerance for permission to do as you pleased, and the Hohenzollern name as a shield for your misbehavior. Your head seemed to have room for nothing but alcohol, gambling, and trouble."
Each judgment landed on Leon's heart like a little hammer. Though she was talking about the original owner, he was sharing this body's fate now, and he felt every word.
"You used to sneak into my room at night," Elisa continued. A barely perceptible shift finally entered her voice—not anger, but a deep helplessness and... resignation. "It wasn't because you felt anything profound for me. You were afraid of the dark, and my presence calmed you down. You never asked whether I was willing, and you never thought there was anything wrong with it. To you, I, Eliza Windsor, your fiancée, was more like... a private possession with a special function. Something that helped you sleep."
Leon felt an invisible hand squeeze his heart, leaving him almost breathless. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Elisa over the past few years, night after night putting up with someone's intrusion and demands. That cold, objectifying feeling was far more hurtful than being hit or scolded.
"I'm sorry." Leon lifted his head and looked Elisa in the eye, the three words coming out with unusual gravity. "I'm sorry for everything I did in the past... that troubled you or made you hate me. I know an apology isn't nearly enough, but... I mean it."
Elisa seemed not to have expected such a solemn apology, and turned to look at him again. This time, there was less scrutiny in her gaze and more curiosity. She watched the remorse and earnestness in Leon's eyes—things she'd never seen there before—and a faint trace of confusion flickered through her violet eyes.
The Leon before her seemed... different from the swaggering young scoundrel she remembered, the one who always put himself first. It wasn't just the tactics he'd used in the duel that day. It was the way he was willing to lower his head and admit he'd been wrong. This didn't seem like him.
"An apology is meaningless." Elisa looked away, her usual cool detachment returning. "What's done is done. Our engagement was arranged by our families, and I've gotten used to your... habits. It's just part of life, like meditating and studying magic every day. It's simply how things are."
Her words still sounded cold, as if she were drawing a clear line between them. But Leon keenly caught a subtle difference. She no longer described herself as having "no choice but to accept it." Instead, she said she had "gotten used to it," that it was "part of life." The distinction was slight, but it meant that while she disliked the situation, she had found a way to live with it—a way that perhaps held a little resilience.
Besides, she hadn't denied that he was "sincere" in his apology. She had only said it was "meaningless." That alone showed a slight softening in her attitude.
Leon's heart stirred. Gathering his courage, he asked the most important question: "Then... what if—I mean, what if—from now on I'm not as... annoying as before?" He stared at Elisa, his heart rising into his throat. "What if I'm not so loud or selfish, and I stop treating you like... an object? Could our relationship... possibly become something different?"
Asking that question took nearly all his strength. He wasn't just asking whether change was possible. He was casting a tentative stone toward his connection to this world and the path that lay ahead. Elisa, the girl whose fate was closely bound to his, might greatly influence the choices he made from here on.
Elisa fell silent again. Steam curled around her, making her profile seem hazy. For a long time, she said nothing, simply gazing at the water as if working through a complicated magical formula.
The seconds passed, and Leon's heart sank little by little. Just as he was about to give up, thinking that his rashness and presumptuous hope had earned him nothing but deeper silence, Elisa finally spoke, very softly and slowly, her voice almost dissolving into the sound of the water:
"Who can predict the future?"
She didn't give him an affirmative answer, nor did she flatly deny it.
She lifted her eyes. For the first time, her violet gaze met Leon's directly, clear and intent, as if she wanted to see through his skin and into the soul that seemed somehow different.
"At least," she paused briefly, then said something that made Leon's heart pound, "today, you didn't make me want to avoid you."
With that, she looked away from Leon and slowly rose from the hot spring. Water droplets rolled off her silken robe, tracing the lovely curves of a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She stepped out of the pool without looking back and headed straight behind the changing screen, leaving only her cool, resolute silhouette and a faint, lingering fragrance in the air.
Leon soaked alone in the warm water, Elisa's final words echoing in his ears.
"Didn't make me want to avoid you."
It was a simple judgment, not even praise. But coming from Elisa, who had always treated him with cold indifference, it was already an enormous step forward! It was like a faint but genuine light shining into the gloom that had hung over him ever since he arrived in this world.
It meant change was possible. He didn't have to bear the label of "young scoundrel" forever. He had a chance to change how others saw him, and a chance to redefine his relationship with Elisa and with this world.
The road ahead was still full of thorns, and the mess the original owner had left behind was still difficult to deal with. Yet now, a tiny flame called hope had kindled in Leon's heart.
He leaned against the edge of the pool and closed his eyes, feeling the hot spring soothe his injured body and that faint fragrance calm his restless soul.
"I won't go back to the way things were," he silently told himself.
For the sake of survival, and for the sake of... those words, "didn't make me want to avoid you," he had to—and would—become a different Leon von Hohenzollern.
That unconventional "victory" at the Old Knight Training Ground, and this conversation beside the hot spring, might well mark the true beginning of all the changes to come. The deep waters of the Imperial Capital were bound to stir into new waves because of him.
Before you continue