Weiss And Leopin (5)

…His body was burning hot, and it was hard to breathe.

It was as though he had been sunk headfirst into a swamp of magma and trampled from above.

…Gwahahahahahahahahaha…!

A laugh like noise echoed inside his head, and no matter how much time passed, it would not stop ringing.

It was an agony like the torments of hell.

“Ugh…! Uuugh…! Guuuuh…!”

Groans naturally leaked out, and his body twisted on its own.

When he turned over, his head struck something hard with a thud, and his muddled consciousness became clear.

“U… ugaah!?”

Leopin sprang up with a beast-like cry.

However, in the next instant, he curled up from the pain that attacked his whole body.

Even so, he somehow raised his face and looked around.

It was a kitchen he recognized.

Leopin had been laid on a wooden bench in the corner of the kitchen.

The mansion’s maid must have treated him, because bandages were wrapped around his body.

Suddenly, a calm voice reached his ears.

“You were having quite the nightmare.”

To Leopin’s feverish body, that voice had a cool, pleasant feeling.

“W-Weiss…!?”

Weiss had his back turned to Leopin and was facing the kitchen counter.

He seemed to be chopping vegetables with clumsy hands.

“You were thrown away on the main street in tatters, so I brought you back. It looks like you took a terrible beating.”

However, Leopin did not answer. In silence, he buried his face in his raised knees.

That was nothing unusual, so Weiss did not seem bothered by it.

“All right, the preparation is done. Now I just have to simmer it in the stove… Wait, we’re out of matches. Hey, Leopin, do you have any matches?”

Then Leopin, still with his face buried in his knees, put his hand into his pocket and held out two stones.

They were red and yellow ores.

“What are these? Firestones? They’re colorful for firestones. And they’re light and soft, like pumice…”

Weiss took the stones, crouched in front of the stove, and tried striking them together.

If they were ordinary firestones, they would only scatter sparks, but these stones were different.

The stones scraped against each other, and the moment powder scattered into the air…

…Whoosh!

A small jet of flame, like the breath of a baby dragon, burst out, and the firewood caught fire in an instant.

“Amazing. I didn’t know stones like this existed. If even I don’t know about them, then this must be a special combination of stones that has not become known to the world. Did you discover them, Leopin?”

Then Leopin, still with his face lowered, gave a small nod.

“I see. All right, wait there. It’ll be ready soon.”

After that, the two exchanged no words and only listened to the soup pot simmering.

A little while later, Weiss opened the lid of the soup pot and served two portions of soup into wooden bowls.

“All right, it’s ready.”

Leopin had already raised his face and was staring into empty space with swollen eyes.

Weiss held the soup out in front of his nose.

“It smells good, doesn’t it? One sip and you’ll be ten thousand times more energetic. It’s a special soup.”

“…Thank you…”

Because Leopin finally opened his mouth, Weiss smiled in secret.

“It looks like you were beaten even worse than usual. Were your opponents the Hero’s followers?”

“…I don’t remember…”

“What?”

“What I was doing, and where, since this morning… I can’t remember a single thing… and before I knew it, I was here…”

Leopin held the bowl of soup in his hands and clutched his head.

“But… only the feeling that something precious was stolen from me remains…! It feels like something terrible will happen if I don’t remember…! I want to remember, but I can’t…!”

Even though Leopin had only just woken up, he was completely exhausted.

“It’s all right, Leopin. First, drink that soup and calm down. Then you’ll recover right away and remember.”

“Th… there’s no way that will happen! This feels weird, like nothing I’ve ever felt before! My head is hazy like it’s covered in fog, and on top of that, it’s heavy like weights have been stuffed inside it…! This feeling isn’t something that’ll go away just from drinking some ordinary soup! You can say that because you don’t understand how I feel, Weiss…!”

Leopin had completely lost his composure.

It was only natural. After experiencing hellish suffering, his body was wracked with terrible pain, and he remembered nothing at all.

Weiss sat down beside him on the bench and firmly embraced Leopin’s shoulders as he sat with his knees up.

“Even I cannot possibly understand how you feel, Leopin. But have I ever lied to you before?”

Those unwavering eyes and sincere words firmly seized Leopin’s heart.

Leopin’s tense shoulders gradually calmed under Weiss’s hand.

“Until now, the soup I made gave you a hundredfold energy. But today’s soup has a hundred times more effect than that.

Please believe in me and try just one sip.”

After being told that much, Leopin fell silent.

He nodded like a small child, held the soup bowl again with both hands, and took a sip.

Seeing that, Weiss also put the soup to his mouth together with him.

And at the same time, they both said, ““Salty.””

“A… as always, Weiss’s soup is salty…”

“Th… that’s strange. According to my calculations, this amount of seasoning should have been perfect…”

The two looked at each other at the same time and shook their shoulders.

Their suppressed laughter immediately turned into a great burst of laughter that shook the kitchen.

It was the usual scene between the two boys.

When Leopin was bullied and sank into gloom, Weiss would clear people out of the mansion kitchen and make soup for Leopin.

The meat in that soup was half-cooked, and the vegetables were uneven and still had their skins on.

The seasoning was also not something that could be praised even as flattery, but…

There was one thing that was certain.

It was that Leopin would always regain his smile.

However, today, that was not all.

The body of Leopin, who had swallowed the soup, began to glow in rainbow colors.

“Huh?”

Leopin’s eyes widened as he looked at his bandage-covered body.

The painful bruises and fresh wounds visible through the gaps in the bandages disappeared before his eyes, and healthy skin returned.

“H… huh!?”

Leopin looked up in shock, and there stood Weiss, groaning “Hmm” with a small bottle shining like a prism in one hand.

“As expected of the legendary secret medicine known as the Elixir. I tried putting about one-third of it into the pot, but I never thought it would have this much effect.”

“Huh… huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!?!?”