Over a month later, Leon and Roswitha headed to the border between human and dragon territories to meet with Leon's master and Rebecca to exchange intelligence.

Unlike previous meetings, this time, Leon brought along some paper, pens, and even a Recording Stone to document his conversation with his master.

He was certain that the intel exchange this time would be substantial.

After all, with the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale being exploded and Old Constantine's resurrection in the mix, the Empire's chaos had grown far more significant.

Leon’s counterattacks had been no small matter either, enough to leave the Empire a memory it wouldn't soon forget.

With such an intense clash between the two sides, Leon firmly believed that the Empire would plan something even bigger next.

And since the Empire was bound to act, some leaks—no matter how minor—were inevitable.

Leon wanted to figure out the Empire's next move or their general project in advance, so he could prepare to counter it.

Previously, Constantine's sudden attack on the Red Dragon Sanctuary had caught Leon completely off guard.

If he and Roswitha hadn't gone to visit Isa at the time, then regardless of the Empire's motives for targeting the Red Dragon Sanctuary, they might have already succeeded.

So now, Leon knew he had to adjust his strategy—he couldn’t perpetually lag one step behind the Empire.

Otherwise, a catastrophic mistake was only a matter of time.

After a few hours, Leon and Roswitha arrived at the mountain cave.

Passing through the waterfall and walking further in, it wasn’t long before they heard a familiar voice.

"Yo, Captain, still alive, huh? I thought you’d been sucked into another spatial rift or something~"

The twin-tailed girl sat on an old wooden table, casually lifting one of her legs to rest it on the table’s edge, with a handgun strapped to the outer side of her thigh.

But Leon didn’t bother responding to Rebecca’s banter.

Instead, he strode over in large steps, reached out a hand, grabbed Rebecca by her collar, and lifted her in the air as if she were a misbehaved puppy.

"Captain, what are you doing?! Let’s talk this out!" Rebecca struggled briefly, but she was currently suspended mid-air, her arms and legs flailing helplessly with no strength to leverage.

Leon held her up with one hand while propping his other hand on his waist, saying nothing. He just stared at her.

Rebecca raised her gaze to her captain. From his stubbornly straight face, she could tell she'd probably done something to provoke him—unintentionally, of course—and he wasn’t likely to let her off so easily.

Wait a second. Something's going wrong!

They only met every three months or so.

The last time they met, things had been perfectly fine. So why was this time starting off with clear “out-for-my-life” energy?

She hadn’t even done anything bad, right?

Rebecca nervously swallowed and turned her head to seek backup from Tiger sitting nearby.

"Old man, old man! Your apprentice is about to smack me—aren’t you going to do something?"

Tiger, who was busy wiping down the blade of his katana, didn’t even look up. "Smacking her is fine, just don’t kill her. We still need her to drive the carriage on the way back."

"My entire worth to you is just as a carriage driver? Old man?!"

Tiger paused, pretending to think it over, then nodded earnestly. "Yep, pretty much just that."

"AAAAAHHH!!"

Rebecca turned her attention to the silver-haired beauty standing behind Leon.

"Sis-in-law, sis-in-law, help me! Your husband’s about to get violent with me! He’s got that same look in his eyes as when he used to slay dragons, sis-in-law!"

"Sweetheart, you’re not a dragon. Relax, he won’t slay you."

Rebecca: ?

Alright. No reliable help here either.

In the end, she could only rely on herself.

Rebecca looked back at Leon, her expression conflicted for a moment before she mustered up a heroic tone.

"Before you deal with me, can I at least know the reason, Captain?"

"You told Roswitha my embarrassing secrets, didn’t you?"

"......" Rebecca only just realized it. "Sis-in-law, you betrayed me!!"

Roswitha blinked, just about ready to explain, but Leon cut her off.

"It has nothing to do with her. She didn’t say anything."

Leon paused, then muttered with obvious grievance, "She just nagged me about the graduation dance for a solid week..."

Rebecca batted her large, pretty eyes. "What?"

"Nothing. Back in school, the only people who knew those stories were you and Martin. Martin never met Roswitha before, and coincidentally, last time we met, you had a long private chat with her. So... just a bit of simple deductive reasoning."

"Captain, what if I said I did it to help you and sis-in-law understand each other better—would you believe me?"

"I wouldn’t."

"Why not, Captain? You should!"

Leon, satisfied that the scare tactic had done its job, stole a glance at Roswitha by his side, noticed she had no visible reaction, and then leaned close to Rebecca’s ear to ask in a low voice,

"What else did you tell her last time?"

Rebecca’s brain kicked into high gear, rapidly searching her memory.

Finally, she shook her head and said, "Only that you can’t swim."

Couldn’t swim.

Hm... no problem there. As long as it wasn’t some story she could use to get jealous or hold a grudge, it was fine.

"Anything else?"

"Nope, Captain, I swear." The girl raised three fingers in an oath, looking solemn.

"I’ll trust you this once."

That said, Leon finally released Rebecca, setting her back down.

The moment her feet touched the ground, the wild girl ran to Roswitha, stomped twice, and tilted her head up to her for comfort, pouting as if to complain.

Roswitha smiled indulgently, looking at Rebecca with an expression that could only be described as doting, like an older relative admiring a child throwing a playful tantrum.

Leon shook his head with a helpless smile, then stepped forward to sit across from Tiger.

Tiger had finished polishing his katana and returned it to its sheath.

"Kid, it seems like you’ve managed to piss off the Empire pretty badly this time."

Straight to the point.

"Oh? Why’s that?"

Leon had a pretty good idea of what his master was referring to.

It was about how, during Constantine's assault on the Red Dragon Sanctuary, he had detonated the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale stitched into that super-zombie dragon’s body.

Of course, Leon's detonation magic wasn’t very sophisticated, so he couldn’t exactly target one specific scale to blow up.

Once the detonation magic was activated, it was an all-or-nothing type of outcome.

This experience highlighted an interesting lesson: wiring bulbs in parallel is way trickier than in series (though that’s off-topic).

"About two months ago, one evening, an explosion occurred at one of the Empire’s royal facilities. Rebecca and I heard the commotion and rushed over."

"The guys from the Royal Adept Corps said their lab, which was used to store Heart-Guarding Dragon Scales, had blown up. All the scales inside were destroyed; not a single one remained intact."

"I assumed it was a certain swordsman who couldn’t stomach the Empire’s corruption and darkness any longer, so he bombed the lab as a threat."

"But later, I noticed that the Empire didn’t issue any warrants on anyone, meaning they clearly knew who destroyed the dragon scales, and that person wasn’t even within their territory."

With that, Tiger turned to his apprentice seated across from him. "So, the one bold enough to challenge the wrath of the Empire—was you, wasn’t it?"

Leon scratched his head. "Well... I didn’t have much of a choice."

Hearing this, Tiger frowned. "Why is it that ever since you turned twenty, everything you do is ‘not by choice’?"

"Huh?"

"Got married by force, had a kid by force, had a second child by force, and now even blowing up the Empire’s treasure was done unwillingly." Tiger counted off on his fingers, listing out General Leon’s storied yet inexplicably bizarre 24 years of existence.

Leon laughed before proceeding to brief his master on Constantine’s resurrection and the circumstances leading to his detonation of the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale.

Tiger nodded thoughtfully after hearing the explanation.

"Bold yet meticulous—undoubtedly, it's your style."

Leon’s smile froze in place, and he immediately protested. "Wha—What do you mean by ‘bold yet meticulous’? I’ve always been meticulous, all right!"

"Does your wife know about this?"

"Of course my wife knows—wait, hold on, we’re discussing tactics, not... other things, right?"

Tiger waved his hand with a laugh, but then his expression turned serious. "In any case, that explosion you caused has dealt the Empire a heavy blow. All the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scales they’ve accumulated over the years were gone. They have no one to blame but themselves."

As Tiger spoke, Leon caught on to something curious.

"Master, you said ‘ the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scales they’ve accumulated over the years ’? Meaning they’ve been collecting dragon scales for quite a while?"

Leon had only learned about the Empire’s interest in Heart-Guarding Dragon Scales after traveling through a spatial rift to the future, twenty years ahead.

But based on what his master said, the Empire had been doing this even earlier.

So how did his master know about it?

Hearing this, the old man paused for a moment, then nodded after some thought. "Yes, I noticed the Empire started taking certain things from the Dragon Clan about thirty years ago. Back then, I didn’t know it was Heart-Guarding Dragon Scales."

"After that, some... incidents occurred, which led to me leaving the Dragon Slayer Army. Ever since, I’ve rarely paid attention to the Empire’s movements."

Leon raised an eyebrow. "...Incidents?"

"Things unrelated to what we’re discussing now, Leon."

Tiger’s reply was brief.

Its subtext was clear: don’t push this line of questioning.

Leon got the underlying message and refrained from pressing further.

He had long noticed that his master was keeping several things from him.

Judging by Tiger’s reaction, it wasn’t that he never intended to share them with Leon—just that the timing wasn’t right.

Leon didn’t know when the so-called “right time” would come, but until then, he chose, as always, to trust his master.

"Does the Empire have any new plans after losing the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale?" Leon asked.

"Yes. Not long after the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale laboratory explosion, large caravans have frequently been entering and leaving the Empire."

The master replied, "Rebecca and I observed closely. Those caravans were transporting enchanted iron cages, and inside those cages were highly dangerous beasts."

"Dangerous Beasts?"

"Yes. The Empire does occasionally hunt Dangerous Beasts that pose a threat to humanity, but their frequency and efficiency have never been as high as they are now."

"Moreover, they always transport the Dangerous Beasts at night, deliberately avoiding crowds."

"That's suspicious, isn't it?"

Leon nodded in agreement. "It is indeed suspicious. Based on the Empire's usual style, whenever they win a battle or successfully subjugate Dangerous Beasts, they make a big spectacle of it to boost public support. But for them to be so low-profile while gathering so many Dangerous Beasts... Could it be that they still haven't let go of Constantine?"

The master's brows furrowed slightly. "Are you suggesting that, even without the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale, the Empire is still planning to continue researching those Constantine-like hybrid monsters?"

"Exactly. That fits their style, doesn't it?"

The kid had a point.

Most people would turn back after hitting a wall;

The Empire, on the other hand, would hit a wall and then hit it again, just to see whether it was made of concrete or bricks.

But Tiger couldn't shake off a faint premonition: if the Empire continued its research on these hybrid monsters… they might end up ensnaring themselves.

After all, that group always had a penchant for chasing after powers they could never truly control.