Several hours later, Leon arrived at Sun city airport, located within Sun City, the origin city of the original Leon Carter, and where his family lived. The city announced itself through the plane window before they even landed. Spread out and glittering with wonderful modern architecture, the kind of city that had been wealthy long enough that the wealth had seeped into the architecture itself.
Once he came off the plane, Leon was helped by his escort from the school to get into his wheelchair. The luggage situation resolved itself quickly given that he had almost none. A few formalities, a stamp, and they were through.
"I'll be handing you over now, Sir." His escort, a rather young man, said.
Unlike his peers, this escort had been quite respectful towards him the entire time they travelled, it was rather strange. Even back on his original world, Leon would be the one handing out such titles to everyone, even the ones who didn't look like they deserved it, but now he was in the receiving end.
Outside the arrivals exit, a man in an all-black suit stood holding a card with his name on it. The moment the man spotted Leon being wheeled through the doors, a brief expression of shock crossed his face, then quickly composed, and he moved forward.
"Young master." He said, offering a curt bow.
'Young master?' Leon repeated in his mind. Wasn't this a 21st century civilization? What was all this?
"I'll hand him over to you now. I've completed my task. Take care, Sir." The escort said, offering a curt bow of his own, though more stoic, it was clear he was from the military. Without waiting for acknowledgement, he turned and left.
The butler, because that was clearly what he was, took the wheelchair handles immediately. "Please, young master. Let me get you home safely."
Not wanting to ask too much questions, Leon simply nodded, "yes." He only wanted to leave the airport at this point.
Ever since he came down from the plane, it felt like all eyes were on him. It could have been because of his condition and the uniformed man escorting him, but that was certainly not it. Being in Sun city, a place where he grew and where his family resided, it was certain that these people looking knew exactly who he was, and he was sure that whatever they were thinking or saying was not positive at all.
Though it didn't bother him, it didn't feel any comfortable.
The man in black suit whom he could only identify as a butler, guided him through the exit and toward the car park, stopping beside a blacked-out luxury sedan that was parked in-between a number of other such cars, all blacked out. He didn't need to think it twice to realise that this was a convoy, just to pick him up.
'So we are bloody rich after all… and this treatment, what is going on here?' He just couldn't grasp fully what was going on.
He was helped into the car. The door closed with the solid, cushioned sound of something expensive, and a moment later, they drove off.
To say the least, this was his first time in any luxury car at all, it was quite exciting. After admiring the interiors of the car and level of comfort, compared to the taxis he normally took in his previous life, he refocused on the more important matter beforehand.
'There's no way a wicked step mother would do all of this for a step son, right? Then what is the catch here? Putting a show for the public eyes, is that it? She's way cornier than I expected.' This was already looking like a headache.
If there was one thing Leon didn't wish upon himself, it was to have to deal with any such family problems, right after not having to deal with dumb highschool rivalry. Thinking about it was already a headache.
Minutes later, past the buzzing metropolis, the buildings thinned and the road began to climb. The convoy wound up the side of a hill, and moments later they arrived at a hill side estate that looked like only something old money could afford. Leon genuinely couldn't believe his eyes, as the property before him was even more soaked in money than what he originally thought.
'Just how much does a national hero get paid to be able to afford all of this even in death?' It just didn't make any sense at all.
The gates opened ahead of the convoy without anyone stopping to interact with them. When they stopped in front of the huge two story building like looked the size of a place an entire lineage stayed, the butler helped Leon out of the car and onto the wheelchair.
"This is insane." Leon couldn't help but exclaim under his breath, thank God no one heard him. This certainly wasn't a mansion at all, it was more like a king's palace, and a very wealthy one at that.
"Welcome home, young master." The butler said as he began wheeling him up the clean stone path toward the front entrance. Leon still hadn't identified what the stone was made of. He was still thinking about it when the front doors swung open, and from within it, a beautiful woman wearing a flowing dress rushed out, tears in her eyes as she approached him. Leon was still trying to process what was going on when she fell on his feet and started weeping. She was on her knees in front of him, hands clutching at his, her shoulders shaking.
Leon looked down at her.
He had arrived in this world with a very clear narrative expectation about what his stepmother was like. He had filed this one under antagonist on day one without much deliberation, and the evidence had seemed to support it fully. From the studio apartment to the empty accounts, the absence of any support was loud.
However, the woman weeping at his feet did not match that file at all!
'Just how far does the act go? First a convoy, then this?' Leon wasn't sold just yet.
She was saying things between the crying, fragmented sentences about how long he had been gone and how frightened she had been when the academy called and why hadn't he come home before, she had been waiting, she had always been waiting. Leon sat in the wheelchair with a broken leg and no prepared response for any of this and did the only thing available to him, which was to say nothing and let it happen.
Perhaps he really would have to revise the file?
After a while, they brought him inside.
The interior matched the exterior in every way that mattered. His room, when the butler guided him to it, was large and clean and arranged with the care of a space that had been maintained in someone's absence rather than abandoned. He genuinely could not remember it. He looked around at the furniture and the window and the bed and had no reference point to compare it to.
He sat in the wheelchair in the middle of it and thought about the original Leon, who had left all of this and ended up in a deteriorating studio apartment, alone enough to make the decision he had made.
He thought about that for a while, then he lay down, extended his cast carefully onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling of a room that was larger than the entire apartment he had woken up in a few days ago.
'Just what is actually going on here?'
…
"—cleared a green dungeon alone after only awakening a few days prior, one summon became two with no recorded precedent for how. And then—" he paused slightly, "—he sold the cores.… none of this make sense, sir. Cores are fundamental to summon cultivation. Every summoner understands this from the beginning. He sold them without apparent hesitation." Joseph set the folder down. "If we didn't have eyes on him from the start, if we didn't know he was Carter's son and had witnessed the phenomenon ourselves, I would be reporting him as a security concern." Joseph said. He was the man with glasses that followed behind the headmaster.
The headmaster, leaning back in his chair, said nothing yet.
"I know. Cores are key to summoners to use in cultivating the strength of their summons, but he chose to sell his instead. Ahhh, it really doesn't make any sense. He certainly lives up to the kind of phenomenon he created, completely abnormal." The headmaster said, leaning back on his chair, thoughts passing through his mind. "What about the one watching him?" He asked.
"Intact, though, it will be difficult now that he has gone home, maintaining proximity becomes considerably more difficult." Joseph answered.
"Of course. Then we better tread carefully." The headmaster's eyes moved to the window. "The last thing we need is to draw attention to our interest before we understand what we're actually looking at. Whatever is attached to that boy, it is not small." He was quiet for a moment. "It is not small at all."
Joseph nodded and picked up the folder again.
Outside the window, the academy continued its ordinary evening, entirely unaware.