Bermuda [bl]

The prison guard who came to deliver lunch to Leonardo discovered the untouched food and blankly stared at the figure sitting against the wall.

As Leonardo raised his gaze that had been directed at the floor and looked at him, the guard clicked his tongue, opened the prison door with a key, took away the existing meal, placed a new one, and said,

"Not eating is your own loss."

Even while saying that, he seemed afraid to get close, so he placed the meal right in front of the bars and firmly locked the door again.

Then, he glanced at Leonardo's face a few more times, scolded the prisoners on the side who were noisily demanding the food that would be thrown away anyway, opened the door at the left end of the corridor, and left.

Following the sound of the heavy iron door closing, the grumbling murmurs of the prisoners continued. After sitting still for a while, Leonardo finally looked down at his wrists again.

The thick handcuffs on his wrists were connected to the wall with sturdy chains, and no matter how much he tried to grab the bars, he could only reach right in front of them but couldn't touch them due to these chains. It seemed they had cleverly adjusted the distance just in case, considering his history of escaping from a specially made iron cage.

Feeling that some of his strength had recovered, Leonardo leaned away from the wall and looked at the window behind him. The small window at the top was not only sturdy in its bars but also very narrow in width, making it difficult to fit a head through even without the bars.

Quietly staring at the window, he thought upon seeing the shadow of the bars created by the diagonally entering sunlight.

'Since I haven't heard the clock tower's chime after coming here, it means the sound is blocked from the outside. Judging by the guard just bringing lunch, it seems to be a little past noon....'

'Outside, there are prison walls on all sides, and the light comes in from the top center. The other side doesn't get any sunlight at all, so the place I'm in is the east side. The shadow of the bars is almost vertical with a slight inclination to the left, so this place is currently the southeast building of the Council.'

The southeast side of the Council was quite far from the main building, and the atmosphere of the building itself was dark, with strict control and surveillance. He had heard that the interior was quite complex, and the reason they had deliberately covered his eyes when moving him here seemed to be for security purposes.

'It's a good thing I roughly looked at the geography while begging to go out for a smoke back then.'

As soon as Leonardo roughly estimated the location, he immediately got up from his spot, grasped the chain connected to the handcuffs, and made sure it didn't drag on the floor. It was because the guard guarding the prison might hear the sound and come back.

Eventually, in that state, he closed his eyes, counted the seconds, and took a few steps within the distance he could go. Although he was a bit worried about being detected by the sensors, he predicted that they wouldn't judge this level of movement as abnormal behavior.

A few seconds later, he opened his eyes again and calculated the distance he had walked by eye measurement.

'It took about 10 seconds to come straight here earlier, and then 15 seconds after turning left. I passed through three doors in the middle and came down the stairs, so this is probably an underground space with an arbitrarily dug center to let light in. But the depth is ambiguous since the stairs I came down were spiral....'

Leonardo repeated lifting and lowering his legs, roughly estimating the height of the stairs he had come down earlier.

'After going down 18 steps, I felt the same light from the right. It was about 75 times like that, so it's roughly the 4th basement floor. The height of one floor is about 3 meters.'

Next, he touched the wall to grasp the sturdiness of the prison's inner wall. As expected of the Council's prison, the hardness of the rock used was considerable.

For now, it was definitely not at a level that could be dealt with by sheer strength, and with the thick mana restraining handcuffs he was wearing, he couldn't use enough mana to shatter it either.

"Are you trying to escape or something?"

At that moment, when he was deep in thought, Leonardo momentarily flinched at the voice coming from across. Slowly turning his head to look at the owner of the voice, the prisoner in the prison diagonally to the left was sticking to the bars, looking this way, and grinning unpleasantly.

He had been quiet for a while, so Leonardo thought he had lost interest. His brows furrowed at the sight of the prisoner speaking with a dirty appearance, revealing yellowish teeth. Even if it wasn't because of his appearance, he had been engaging in all sorts of lewd talk except when sleeping and would spit out vulgar words playfully as if asking to do it with him if their eyes met.

Moreover, he seemed to have been in this prison for quite a long time, as he casually spoke to the guard when he approached. Even if he didn't want to hear it, listening to their conversations, it could be inferred that his crime for being imprisoned here was also related to a sex scandal, and he had already come in and out three times for the same issue.

Leonardo had been thoroughly ignoring his existence, thinking why they had to put him in a place with such a crude fellow even when locking him up. However, now that their eyes met, it suddenly occurred to him that someone who had been here for a long time would know a lot about this prison.

After quietly observing the prisoner, Leonardo opened his mouth that had been closed all along.

"Hey, where is this place?"

"Oh, ooh! He finally spoke!"

"What? He spoke?"

The prisoner made a fuss as if he didn't expect him to answer. Then, the prisoner in the cell directly to Leonardo's left also reacted to those words and asked back. Leonardo felt like he was trapped in a cage and being watched, so he furrowed his already crumpled brows even more.

The prisoner grinned at him.

"Here? Where else, it's a prison. You don't even know that after being caught and brought in?"

It was an extremely obvious statement, so Leonardo didn't bother to answer. Instead, since there was a small window behind the prisoner's head, he looked at it and asked,

"What's outside your window?"

At his gesture, the prisoner glanced back at the window on the wall behind him, then turned his head again and pointed behind him with his thumb.

"That?"

When Leonardo nodded, the prisoner asked back with a snicker,

"What will you do for me if I tell you?"

At those brazen words, Leonardo made a dumbfounded expression and waved his hand as if it wasn't worth the trouble.

"Never mind."

"Ah, you're so impatient. There's nothing but another prison behind this. It'll probably be the same as the window behind you."

As the conversation was about to end, the prisoner hurriedly added. However, it was an equally unremarkable answer, so Leonardo couldn't hide his disappointed look. After a few exchanges, the prisoner, who thought this was an opportunity, relentlessly talked to him, not minding at all.

"Hey, hey, what did you do outside before coming here? Judging by your looks, did you make a living with your face or something?"

"..."

"You better wake up from the thought of escaping from here. I've tried many times, you know, and this place is a fortress, I tell you."

The prisoner on the left suddenly intervened, hooked on the word 'escape,' and began to list his past escape attempts like a heroic tale. However, the endings were all the same, getting caught not far, and he didn't properly see the internal structure, so it wasn't very helpful.

They had so much to say that once the topic was set, they continued the conversation among themselves even without an answer. Leonardo wrapped the loose chain around his hand again to continue what he was doing. But the worrisome talk came next.

"Anyway, at times like this, you need to be careful. These days, the already severe vigilance has become even more brutal because of that guy Leonardo Blaine."

When his name was mentioned, his head naturally turned even to the meaningless conversation. After standing still for a moment, Leonardo finally sat on the floor and listened attentively to see if there was any content that could be a clue.

It seemed these prisoners didn't know that the person next to them right now was Leonardo Blaine.

As the indifferent Leonardo seemed to show interest, the prisoner diagonally across asked, looking at him,

"I heard that guy caused a ruckus in the Imperial Capital, so if you came in this morning, did you see that guy going wild that day? It's my regret that I couldn't witness it. How can a guy escape from a transport iron cage and give Kazad a hard time? Amazing-."

"I heard he's also lucky. At that time, something like a glass bottle flew and shattered, and you know those horses pulling the iron cage? I heard they were startled and went wild? The guards were also only talking about that all day."

'Glass bottle?'

Leonardo, who had no idea that such a thing was hidden behind the reason he was able to escape from the transport iron cage, raised one eyebrow smoothly. He had a feeling that the horses pulling the iron cage suddenly got excited and ran hastily, but that was because a glass bottle flew and shattered...

Leonardo, who had been keeping his mouth shut, asked the prisoners towards the air,

"Who threw that glass bottle?"

"How would I know? It must have been one of those people, right? Anyway, those humans are also stupid, I tell you."

The prisoners snickered among themselves, disparaging the citizens who were at the scene at the time. The topic quickly diverged again.

Thinking that there was nothing more to find out from their conversation, Leonardo blankly rested his chin on his arm resting on his knee. However, the prisoner across seemed to think it meant he wanted to talk to him, so he sat down, pulling his butt closer, and spoke to him with a sinister smile,

"But, aren't you worried that I might tell the guard what I just saw?"

He seemed to be referring to Leonardo grasping the chain and moving around earlier, making various eye measurements. If he showed signs of trying to escape, he would become a target of intensive surveillance, so he seemed to be trying to blackmail him using that as an excuse. Leonardo replied with a cold gaze,

"Are you threatening me?"

"Oh my, what kind of words are those?"

As the prisoner spoke with a grin, Leonardo answered indifferently,

"Go ahead and tell them if you want. I'll kill you before that."

He was in a bad mood because the crude fellow kept talking to him just because he had a bit of conversation with him, even though there was no particular gain. The prisoner blinked his eyes and shut his mouth as if he didn't expect such words to come out of Leonardo's mouth.

Since he unexpectedly became quiet quickly, Leonardo thought he would come to his senses and stop now, but the guy who had entered the prison for the third time as a repeat offender was much more hopeless than expected.

The prisoner revealed his yellowish teeth again and grinned, making a loop with his fingers. Then, he repeatedly made a gesture of poking another finger into it and said to Leonardo,

"You'll kill me with this? Oh my, I'm grateful."

As if finding it amusing, the sound of another prisoner laughing hysterically followed. Seeing that sight, Leonardo had a serious urge to commit murder, even though he knew it wasn't right.

'Should I really kill him?'

He thought the oxygen those bastards consumed for breathing was a waste, but he soon shook his head and composed himself.

However, it was too unpleasant to just let it go, with that face constantly grinning at him, so Leonardo lightly stretched his fingers and raised his hand from afar towards the prisoner in front of him.

As the prisoner looked at that hand with interest, wondering what it would do, Leonardo said,

"Hey, you stay still."

"Huh?"

"You might explode if you get hit wrong."

Leonardo closed one eye and aimed his fingertips toward the direction between the prisoner's legs.

Although he was wearing mana restraining handcuffs, he could use a subtle level of magic, so he intended to just scare him appropriately. Originally, he planned to hide the fact that he could use magic of other attributes as much as possible, but he thought there was no point in doing so after even having his mana extracted.

He lightly flicked his fingers in the air as if flicking a finger snap. Then, the condensed air from his fingertips shot out towards the space between the prisoner's legs.

After a moment, a popping sound was heard as if a gourd had been split, and the face of the prisoner, who had been grinning, turned pale, and he fell backward without even screaming.

Seeing that, Leonardo stopped with his hand extended, looking a bit flustered, unlike his usual self.

"Huh...? My mistake."

He had no intention of actually hitting him, but somehow, it seemed to have hit properly. The prisoner directly to the left, thinking the fallen guy was playing a prank, was still snickering and laughing, but as time passed with him lying still as if he had fainted, he asked in a puzzled voice,

"What? Is he acting right now?"

Leonardo raised his head and looked at the sensors again, a little worried. But fortunately, the movement itself wasn't that big, so the red light blinked a few times and quickly faded away.

Moreover, the prisoner directly to the left was hidden by the wall and couldn't see his actions. There were no particular witnesses either. Leonardo let out a sigh of relief.

* * *

"His main attributes are fire and electricity, but he can use magic of all four other major attributes. In other words, he's an All-Rounder."

Looking at the data screen displayed at the front of the Grand Conference Hall of the Council, Hugo couldn't help but be amazed.

It wasn't just Hugo. The high-level personnel of the Council's army deployed in actual combat, executives, staff officers, and even council members. In a gathering of all the Council-related personnel, they each exclaimed and let out gasps of admiration upon seeing Leonardo's mana component analysis table briefed by the medical staff.

All-Rounder.

It referred to a mage who could use all four major attributes of mana: fire, water, earth, and wind.

An All-Rounder mage was an extremely rare case not only in Raina Logia but also in other empires. Moreover, even if they were called an All-Rounder, in most cases, the range of usage for attributes other than the main attribute was often insignificant.

However, in the case of Leonardo Blaine, he was an exceptional case in fire and electricity, so those two were developed to the extent of breaking the balance, but he could also handle the other three attributes to a certain degree freely.

Just having two main attributes was considered being born with the qualities of a mage, but being able to use all four basic attributes meant being a genius.

This All-Rounder mage, who had been shrouded in mystery, was considered too precious to lose by the Council, emerging as a genius after 12 years since Hugo Agrizendro's mana component examination.