Chapter 104: Crush Arthur
Medusa’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she tilted her head as she studied him from behind.
"It’s strange..." she said quietly. "I’m standing this close to you, and you’re not afraid of me?"
Leon shook his head, his tone plain and honest.
"No," he said. "Why would I be?"
If anything, fear wasn’t what he was feeling right now. What unsettled him far more was just how touchy she was being, standing close behind him, her hands resting against his back without any hesitation at all, as though personal space simply didn’t exist for her.
He thought back briefly to Arthur, the spirit bound to Excalibur, and how vastly different that encounter had been.
Arthur had been cold and sharply judgmental from the very first moment they met, dismissing him almost instantly as unworthy.
There had been no warmth in that meeting at all, nothing close to what he was experiencing now.
Medusa, on the other hand, felt like an entirely different kind of presence altogether.
He simply assumed, without dwelling on it too much, that since they were different spirits tied to different legendary items, it made sense that their personalities would differ just as much.
The moment the words left his mouth, Medusa’s entire demeanor seemed to brighten instantly. Her earlier composed, almost melancholic expression shifted into something far more lively, and before he could react, she grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him gently, almost like an excited child.
"Really?" she asked, her voice carrying a note of genuine delight now.
Leon blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift, and simply nodded, staring at the woman in front of him, the very same woman who had snakes coiling all across her head in place of hair.
The snakes themselves had gone completely calm now, no longer hissing or baring their fangs the way they had earlier.
They floated softly around her head instead, drifting gently in the breeze, almost peaceful in the way they moved.
Despite how objectively terrifying the sight should have been, a woman with living, breathing serpents growing from her scalp, Leon found himself thinking that she seemed, in this moment, far more like an overly excited child than the fearsome mythological figure he vaguely associated with her name.
’Her face is way more terrifying on Aegis,’ he thought, comparing the version of her etched into his shield, sharp-eyed and severe, to the woman standing in front of him now, practically beaming at his simple admission that he wasn’t afraid of her.
The contrast was almost jarring. On the shield, she looked like something meant to be feared, a warning etched into metal and light.
Standing here in the field, hands still resting lightly on his shoulders, she looked like someone who had simply been alone for far too long, starved for even the smallest bit of company.
Before he could think any further on it, a notification appeared in front of him.
[Your affinity with Ring of Aegis had grown a lot stronger!]
Leon blinked, caught off guard by the notification still hovering in front of him.
’What? The affinity increased again?!’ he thought, staring at the message for a second longer than necessary, half expecting it to change or explain itself further.
This time, though, no new skill unlocked alongside it.nJust the single line about his affinity, sitting quietly in the air before fading away on its own.
He looked back up at Medusa, who was still watching him closely, her expression practically glowing at this point, feeling almost out of place given everything he had learned so far about legendary spirits.
Even the snakes coiled through her hair seemed to be caught up in her mood, their small mouths curving into what almost looked like tiny smiles as they floated lazily around her head.
Leon found the sight a little funny, despite himself, the image of grinning snakes doing little to match the fearsome reputation he vaguely associated with the name Medusa.
He cleared his throat, deciding it was probably time to steer the conversation somewhere more useful.
"So..." he said, glancing at her carefully, "why did you summon me here?"
Medusa cleared her throat as well, straightening up slightly, though the excitement in her expression didn’t fade at all.
"Yeah..." she said, her tone shifting into something a little more purposeful. "I just wanted to talk to you about something."
Leon nodded slowly, still cautious, still trying to read her intentions beneath the bright, almost childlike energy she kept giving off.
"Okay..." he said. "What’s that?"
She took a small step closer, her green eyes locking onto his with a sudden intensity that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
"You know," she said, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, "you actually have a lot more in common with me than you realize. "One of which is the desire to crush that bastard Arthur Pendragon!"
Leon’s eyes widened the instant the words left her mouth, his entire body going still as the sentence sank in.
’Crush Arthur...?’ he thought, his mind scrambling to catch up with what she had just said.
He hadn’t expected that. Somehow, without him ever mentioning it, without him ever explaining what had happened, Medusa had already known about his encounter with Arthur.
He stared at her, searching her face for some explanation, some hint as to how she could possibly know something so specific, something he hadn’t spoken about out loud since it happened.
The realization sat heavily in his chest, unsettling in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with just how little control he seemed to have over what these spirits already knew about him.
’Why would she want to crush him though...?’ Leon thought, his mind racing to piece together some kind of connection between Medusa and Arthur that could explain the sheer venom behind her words.
Then it clicked.
He suddenly remembered something Arthur had said back in that strange dimension, about shattering the original shield of Aegis long ago. .
’It makes sense now!’ he thought, the pieces falling into place. ’Since she’s the spirit of Aegis, she’ll certainly want revenge against the one who cut her down.’
It made perfect sense, in a strange way. If Arthur had truly been responsible for breaking the original shield, then of course its spirit would carry a grudge against him, one that had clearly festered for however long she had been trapped, waiting for a chance to do something about it.
Still, Leon wasn’t entirely sure he could say he shared the exact same desire she seemed to be carrying.
All he really wanted, at the end of the day, was to take back Excalibur for himself, to prove to Arthur, whether the king liked it or not, that he was more than capable of wielding it properly.
His goal had never been revenge exactly, just proof, just the chance to show he wasn’t unworthy.
Medusa’s feelings, on the other hand, seemed to run far deeper than that. There was nothing measured or reasonable about the hatred radiating off her when she spoke Arthur’s name, nothing that resembled a simple desire to prove a point.
What she carried was pure, unfiltered resentment, built up over what had clearly been a very long time, directed entirely at the man who had shattered her all those years ago.
As if sensing the shift in her own mood, the snakes coiled through her hair slowly began to change, softening and unwinding until they settled back into ordinary strands of long, green hair, falling gently over her shoulders the way they had when Leon first laid eyes on her.
She smiled at him then, warm and unguarded, before suddenly wrapping her arm around his and stepping in close, resting her head lightly against his shoulder.
Leon stiffened at the sudden contact, caught off guard by how naturally she had closed the distance between them yet again.
Still, despite his surprise, he didn’t push her away this time, standing still instead as she leaned against him.
She let out a slow, quiet exhale, the sound carrying a strange mixture of relief and lingering bitterness all at once.
"We should work together..." she said softly, her voice muffled slightly against his shoulder. "I’ll support you in the best way I can, until we take down that useless, hypocritical, scheming bastard."
Leon stayed quiet for a moment, letting her words settle over him, the weight of what she was proposing sinking in slowly.
An alliance with the spirit bound to his own shield, built on her hatred for Arthur and his own unfinished business with the man, wasn’t something he had expected to walk into when he opened his eyes in this field only minutes ago.
He glanced down at her, still leaning against his arm, her earlier bright, almost childlike energy now tempered by something far more serious simmering just beneath the surface.
Whatever history existed between her and Arthur, it clearly ran far deeper and far darker than anything he currently understood, and he found himself wondering just how much more there was to learn about the shield he had been wearing so casually all this time.