Leon had Beriel drop Camellya off at her home before taking him back to the service apartment in Zeusea that he'd rented for the time he'd be in the city.
He stepped into the building, yawning lightly as he closed the door behind him, and he immediately noticed a faint, enticing aroma.
Blinking in slight surprise, he hurried over to the kitchen and saw his mother casually taking plates from the wall-mounted cupboard.
"You're still in your outdoor shoes. Change," she said without even looking in his direction, placing the plates she picked on the counter and beginning to dish the food she'd just finished cooking.
Hearing this, Leon looked down at his feet, then behind him at the trail of sand he'd left from the door to the kitchen, before turning back and returning to the door to kick off his shoes.
Picking a pair of slides from the foyer rack, he put them on before hurrying back to the kitchen, just in time to see his mother walk out to the connected dining.
"You done with your work already?" he asked, curious why Lucia had come over from Frobert, Asteau's capital, but she only shook her head.
"Not yet. They still haven't finalised the details of the treaty."
"Huh? Haven't you guys been at this for days now?"
The treaty negotiations Lucia was mediating had started on the 1st when Leon and Camellya entered the Pohedurn Gorge dungeon, and today was the 3rd.
Naturally, Leon wasn't expecting something like this to be resolved in just 3 days, but these were meant to be the final negotiations where they'd go over the terms that had already been agreed upon and ensure there were no loopholes that could be taken advantage of.
"It shouldn't take that long, should it?"
"It shouldn't," Lucia replied as she removed her apron and folded it. "But the Othal Kingdom's diplomats keep dragging the process out."
Her response had Leon exhale softly as he thought about the chaos this treaty would bring later on.
Asteau was acting as the neutral ground, hosting diplomats from one of the major world powers on the Ireth Continent, the Othal Kingdom, along with the Empire of the Feqora Floating Continent, which was dominated by dragons.
Although Citerans had largely united to deal with the last invasion from another world that took place 20 years ago, cooperation hadn't exactly been smooth due to lingering issues from before that time.
Now that the war was long over, those old grudges were rising to the surface again, and one of them was the tension between certain nations that believed that the presence of other races on Ireth, once known as the 'Human Continent,' was unnatural and needed to be purged.
"The Othal Kingdom is one of the more prominent supremacist nations, aren't they?" Leon asked as he took a seat at the table. "Most of the incidents that caused tensions to rise this high came from them as well, so could it be that they actually want a war and are intentionally delaying things so the dragons lose their patience and they can claim the 'dragons weren't willing to negotiate'?"
At his question, Lucia chuckled and shook her head as she spoke under her breath.
"Oh my. My son wasn't even present, and he can clearly see what they're trying to pull. So I really don't understand how some of those old lizards can't see this plot so plainly."
Her tone held clear exasperation, and from her words, Leon could tell how frustrated she truly was at the inability of some of the dragon diplomats to notice the scheme unfolding right in front of them.
"But it would be foolish for Othal to start a war with the dragons. Unlike Ireth, which has dozens of countries, Feqora is united under a single Dragon Empire.
Going to war with an entire continent couldn't be more foolish."
Lucia shook her head at Leon's words, pouring water into two glasses and placing them on the table before replying.
"That's not exactly the case. They might have some plan to pull other Irethian countries into the mix, or they might have some other scheme we're unaware of.
Regardless of what they're truly planning, they can't be allowed to start a war that Tihall would get caught up in."
The 'Tihall' Lucia referred to was another of Citera's floating continents, one dominated by the Angel race.
It was positioned between Ireth and Feqora, so if a group of countries on Ireth went to war with Feqora's Dragon Empire, then Tihall would inevitably be caught in the crossfire due to its geographical position, which meant they couldn't allow a war to happen.
As such, Lucia was mediating not only as the representative of the Russell Empire, who didn't want a trade partner heading into war, but also as the daughter of a Councilman of Tihall, who didn't want a war taking place over or beneath her homeland.
"That's a lot of work you've got on your hands," Leon muttered before picking up his glass, and Lucia rolled her eyes.
"Tell me about it," she said. Clicking her tongue lightly, she continued, "I promised the Emperor I'd give them a week, so they have four more days.
If they still can't reach an agreement by then, then I'll take matters into my own hands."
In other words, Lucia would stop acting in her capacity as a Noble of the Russell Empire and as a Tihall Councilman's daughter, and instead begin using her influence as one of those who brought an end to the invasion from two decades ago.
"Ending things by force isn't my style, but they're really leaving me with little choice in this case," she said, exhaling softly.
The woman then shook her head lightly, as if trying to shake away the problem before looking back at Leon and speaking, "Your dungeon run seems to have gone fairly well."
"Yep, it went pretty well," Leon replied with a nod. "Got the Combat Class I was after."
"Good for you."
"Mhmm. Still sad that I couldn't get an advancement, though. I'll have to go to some other dungeon so I can gain the necessary EXP," Leon said as he pulled out his phone and searched for nearby dungeons with his left hand while his right hand brought some of the pasta Lucia cooked to his mouth.
Officially regulated dungeons could be searched up online without difficulty, and one could apply for an entry permit just as quickly.
After doing that, Leon set his phone down and looked back at Lucia.
"There's something I need your help with, Mother."
"Which is?"
"You know how the dungeon I went to was a Hero's final battlefield, right?"
"Mhmm."
"Well, we ended up finding the Hero's corpse there."
Lucia's hands paused at Leon's words, and she looked up from her food with a faint look of surprise.
"You found his corpse?"
Leon wasn't surprised by Lucia's reaction, understanding that his mother had most likely already had the Pohedurn Gorge ruins investigated before he went there, and because of that, she'd know that it had been decades since the Hero's death and would have expected his corpse to have long been either retrieved or destroyed.
But Leon's words implied that neither had happened.
"Yep. It was frozen in ice, so it's relatively intact," Leon answered. "I had Elidyr pack it up, so I was wondering if you could pass it on to the government of Asteau. If they run a bit of facial recognition, they'll realise the Hero is one of their own."
Leon had originally planned to simply have a burial conducted, but after remembering that Lucia was currently in contact with Asteau's President and its higher officials, he reconsidered.
"That shouldn't be a problem," Lucia replied.
"Thanks, Mother."
Leon set down his cutlery after speaking, getting to his feet and stretching as he continued, "I'm exhausted, and I wanna make an advancement tomorrow, so I'll turn in early."
With those words, he walked around the table to Lucia's side, hugged her and said, "Thanks for dinner."
He started heading toward the stairs, but after recalling something, he paused and turned back.
"Right, I almost forgot. I might end up bringing some new friends along when we head back to Russell. Ask Elidyr for the details. I'm sure he's already done a background check on them."
After saying that, he hurried up the stairs, leaving Lucia behind to finish her meal in silence. The woman then picked up her phone and sent a short text, and within seconds, there was a knock on the door.
With a snap of her fingers, it unlocked and opened, and Elidyr stepped inside and made his way straight to the dining area, bowing his head before Lucia.
"Leon mentioned something about 'new friends' of his…" Lucia began, only to trail off as Elidyr silently summoned a tablet with several PDF files open on the screen and placed it on the table in front of her.
She picked up the tablet and glanced through the biodata of the Seradain Family members, along with all the information Elidyr had gathered on them.
Her gaze showed little interest as she skimmed through Cameron and Camellya's details, with only slight curiosity toward their fairly high levels and the unusual number of artifacts Elidyr reported sensing within the Seradain household.
However, when she swiped right and moved to Genevieve's details, her eyes widened slightly in surprise, and a faint laugh left her lips.
'So that's where you've been hiding, Artificial Magic Project Subject 15: Stormweaver.'